Neatorama

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• Awesome Space Shuttle Time Lapse
• Dutch World Cup Shirts
• Survival Tip: Disrupt the Power Grid
• Glowing Tron Themed Nintendo
• Robotic Fish Take Over Schools, Lead them to Safety
• New Bicycle Helmet Stinks After an Impact
• Cat Plays in Bathtub Filled with Beanbag Chair Stuffing
• LEGO Printer
• Engaged Couple Born Same Day in the Same Hospital
• Logan's Run Remake in 3D
• Lego Remodeling
• New and Improved Mondo Spider
• Mayflies Seen on Radar
• Zero Energy Office Tower
• Is This a Real Golf Ball Hitting a Steel Plate?
• Neatorama Upcoming Queue Contest Winners
• Baby Klingon
• The Dogs of Summer
• The Great Television Nickname Match-Up, Vol. 1
• The Coke Zero and Mentos Rocket Car
• Booty-shaking Frogs

Awesome Space Shuttle Time Lapse Posted: 02 Jun 2010 10:54 PM PDT This might very well be the coolest time-lapse video I’ve ever seen. Move over Koyaanisqatsi - you’ve got company from NASA! Link via YouTube (thanks PhamPants for the tip!)

Dutch World Cup Shirts Posted: 02 Jun 2010 08:05 PM PDT It’s been done before, but the effect is still funny! These shirts were designed for the Dutch Football Federation for the 2010 World Cup tournament beginning next week in South Africa. Do I see a woman wearing one of these in the background? Link -via Nag on the Lake

Survival Tip: Disrupt the Power Grid Posted: 02 Jun 2010 08:03 PM PDT Imagine you are stranded in the woods with no way to call for help. An unnamed man in Saskatchewan found himself in just such a position, but he figured out a plan that worked. He cut down some power line poles! Several hundred people in Wollaston Lake and Hatchet Lake Denesuline Nation lost electrical power for two days. But the power company found the lost traveler. “He was found under his boat in a very distressed state, so essentially he was stranded for a number of days and just desperate for people to know where he was,” SaskPower spokesman James Parker said. The man reported he had been on a boat on the lake when he hit bad weather. He ended up stranded in the bush, with no way to communicate with the outside world, Parker said. But he had an axe and he knew SaskPower would have to check the downed line, so he went to work. “Essentially it was mission accomplished, because we got the call, we chartered a helicopter … and on Friday around noon we discovered him,” Parker said. Link -via Fark

Glowing Tron Themed Nintendo Posted: 02 Jun 2010 06:47 PM PDT [YouTube - Link] YouTube user Thretris modified an original NES with a custom Tron paintjob, and stuffed in some new hardware. Skip to minute 2 to avoid the technical stuff. This NES has been custom painted using a hand mixed airbrush paint with glowing powder. The paint job not only glows BRIGHTLY in black light, but it charged and stays glowing on its own. The console also has NESmod installed which acts a dual mono “stereo” mod with boosted sound from an additional PCB with amplified audio. Thretris has also customized a Gameboy. Via Nerd Approved

Robotic Fish Take Over Schools, Lead them to Safety Posted: 02 Jun 2010 06:35 PM PDT Maurizio Porfiri, a professor at NYU Polytechnic University, is designing robotic fish that he hopes will be able to infiltrate schools of fish and lead them away from dangers, such as water turbines. He thinks that certain movements by fish establish them as school leaders and that he can mechanically duplicate these behaviors: Since fish of different sizes and species school together, Porfiri correctly hypothesized that they would not only accept a robotic peer that was larger than themselves but also welcome it as a group leader. To engage live shoal mates, Porfiri wanted to give the robot other fish qualities. Foremost, it would have to swim silently, and its locomotion would have to closely match that of live fish. To achieve these goals, he employed ionic polymers that swell and shrink in response to electrical stimulation from a battery, propelling the robot. Link via Popular Science | Photo: NYU-Polytechnic | Previously on Neatorama: RoboSalmon Spies on Fish

New Bicycle Helmet Stinks After an Impact Posted: 02 Jun 2010 06:26 PM PDT Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials in Germany have developed a bicycle helmet that emits a foul stench after an impact. This would inform users that the shock absorbing material inside is no longer effective and it’s time to get a new helmet: The polymer materials or plastics produced by the process start to smell if they develop small cracks. Large cracks really cause a stink. The smell comes from odoriferous oils enclosed in microcapsules. “Cyclists often replace their helmets unnecessarily after dropping them on the ground, because they cannot tell whether they are damaged or not. The capsules eliminate this problem. If cracks form, smelly substances are released,” explains Dr.-Ing. Christof Koplin, research scientist at the IWM. Link via DVICE | Image: Fraunhofer IWM

Cat Plays in Bathtub Filled with Beanbag Chair Stuffing Posted: 02 Jun 2010 06:17 PM PDT (YouTube Link) A cat belonging to YouTube user soccerduck1189 peed on a beanbag chair. So before he threw it out, he dumped its contents into a bathtub and let the cat play in it. He notes that, despite appearances, the cat did not actually eat any stuffing and didn’t get sick. via Urlesque

LEGO Printer Posted: 02 Jun 2010 06:12 PM PDT (YouTube Link) YouTube user horseattack made a functional printer from LEGOs and a felt tip marker. It prints 75 dots per square inch in the Helvetica font. He programed the entire system from scratch and plans to make his schematics available to the public. via Geekosystem

Engaged Couple Born Same Day in the Same Hospital Posted: 02 Jun 2010 06:00 PM PDT An engaged couple in Pennsylvania has been together from the very beginning of their lives: An engaged eastern Pennsylvania couple were born on the same day in the same hospital – and their mothers even shared a room in the maternity ward. Amy Singley and Steven Smith were born at St. Luke’s Hospital in Fountain Hill on April 17, 1986. After the mothers were hospital roommates, the two families continued to interact through their church in Easton. Smith asked Singley on a date to the movies when they were sophomores in high school. Link | Photo by Flickr user brianna.lehman used under Creative Commons license

Logan's Run Remake in 3D Posted: 02 Jun 2010 03:50 PM PDT Logan’s Run, the fantastic science fiction film that debuted in 1976, is getting a reboot in 3D. If you’ve seen the film The Island, you’ve basically seen Logan’s Run with a slightly different twist and in a much toned down iteration. The plot involved a dystopian future society in which population and the consumption of resources is managed and maintained in equilibrium by the simple expediency of killing everyone who reaches the age of thirty (21 in the book), thus neatly (and inhumanely) avoiding the issue of overpopulation which was of growing concern at the time. Those who try to escape their destiny are known as a "Runners", and is hunted down by operatives known as Sandmen. Check out the trailer for the original film here. Image and story via /Film

Lego Remodeling Posted: 02 Jun 2010 03:31 PM PDT Jan Vormann is an artist whose interesting use of LEGO pieces has left the art exhibit and entered the real world. He patches up old buildings with the toy building blocks in a way that’s quite visually appealing. Titled 'Dispatchwork' (a linguistic play on 'dispatching' and 'patching' the holes), this is part urban art installation, part historical highlighting (since many of the gaps date back to World War II) and part method of calling attention to buildings that could use some help. Photo – Jan Vormann | Via dornob

New and Improved Mondo Spider Posted: 02 Jun 2010 03:13 PM PDT [YouTube - Link] The Mondo Spider, a badass mechanical arachnid originally devised by a couple guys in their garage in preparation for Burningman, has gotten a full makeover. The machine still doesn’t seem incredibly efficient, but who cares? It’s a 1,700 lb driveable robot spider… See our report on the original incarnation of this fantastic beast here. Via UniqueDaily

Mayflies Seen on Radar Posted: 02 Jun 2010 03:02 PM PDT This radar image was obtained by the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office in La Crosse. The area depicted is where the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa meet. A mayfly hatch along the Mississippi River was caught on Doppler radar out of NWS La Crosse this evening. The radar view below shows an image at 9:13 p.m. CDT on Saturday, May 29, 2010. The bugs are showing up as bright pink, purple, and white colors along the Mississippi River mainly south of La Crosse, WI. After the bugs hatch off the water and river areas, they are caught in the south-southeast winds while airborne for about 10-20 minutes. Link, via.

Zero Energy Office Tower Posted: 02 Jun 2010 03:00 PM PDT Oregon is living up to its reputation as one of the greenest states in the US, this time with an office tower designed to be the first Living Building Challenge – certified in the world. The Oregon Sustainability Center certainly looks gorgeous, and it’s packing every green trick in the book: The Portland-based skyscraper is being developed using the LBC's doctrine of neither taking resources nor causing environmental harm — this means that the building will produce all of its own water sources and energy. That's a tall order for a tower, but the collection of non-profits that comprise the Center, along with a strong community, feel up to it. Ground breaking is projected to start by the end of the year. Check out the source to see the efforts necessary to keep it certified (everything matters… from recycled toilet water to the angle of the building). Photo - eVolo | Via Inhabitat

Is This a Real Golf Ball Hitting a Steel Plate? Posted: 02 Jun 2010 02:47 PM PDT YouTube link. This video purports to show a golf ball striking a steel plate at 150 mph, with the action filmed at 70,000 frames per second.  At several YouTube postings of the same sequence, the discussion threads are dominated by incredulity, with opinions being presented that a real golf ball cannot deform to this degree, and that what is shown is another type of ball resembling a golf ball, or else pure computer graphics (or, as the YouTube crowd says, “photoshopping.”)  The discussion at Neatorama will presumably be more intelligent and well-informed.  What do you think?  A real regulation golf ball? Via within the crainium.

Neatorama Upcoming Queue Contest Winners Posted: 02 Jun 2010 12:28 PM PDT Last month, we had a contest for Neatorama’s Upcoming Queue: the top submitter for May 2010 wins an Apple iPad and the next three win $50 shopping sprees from the NeatShop. We’ve had lots of great submissions, and Neatoramanaut nmiller and Marilyn Terrell were in a neck to neck race to the finish line (One of my early on favorites, Geekazoid, sadly threw in the towel after the first week or so). The two front-runners had great posts in perfect Neatorama-format, but nmiller pulled ahead by sheer quantity of posts submitted (nearly 200!). So, for a well-deserved win, the main prize goes to nmiller! Congrats Nathan, Marilyn, Geekazoid and sshuggi. Thank you everyone for participating! Pardon my messy desk – we have a lot of new stuff waiting to be listed on the NeatoShop. In case you’re wondering, those are sweet meat plush toys (yes, giant plushies shaped like T-bone steak, pork chop and ham hocks)

Baby Klingon Posted: 02 Jun 2010 10:20 AM PDT At NeatoBambino, we find out there are children’s songs and lullabies in the Klingon language. Sing them to your child, and he or she may end up like the baby in the included video! Link

The Dogs of Summer Posted: 02 Jun 2010 10:12 AM PDT (zapp link) A group of Hungarian dogs have a great time at the beach. -via Everlasting Blort

The Great Television Nickname Match-Up, Vol. 1 Posted: 02 Jun 2010 10:05 AM PDT In many TV shows, you know someone by their nickname, and you only know their given name if you pay close attention. In this Lunchtime Quiz from mental_floss, you’ll have to match up characters’ nicknames with the character’s real name on the show. I scored 60%, which means I missed every one that I took a guess on. Link

The Coke Zero and Mentos Rocket Car Posted: 02 Jun 2010 09:06 AM PDT (YouTube link) You knew it was coming sooner or later. The geniuses from Eepybird, who made an art form out of the Mentos/Diet Coke phenomenon, have harnessed their creation to propel a vehicle. Link -via Unique Daily

Booty-shaking Frogs Posted: 02 Jun 2010 07:35 AM PDT Male red-eyed tree frogs communicate with each other by shaking their butts. This behavior was captured on infrared camera in the rain forest of Panama by Michael Caldwell of Boston University and his colleagues. This shaking, known as tremulation, is a form of communication between male tree frogs. The males are tremulating to establish which is the dominant male. They're claiming territory for their 'calling area' where they spend the night calling for a female mate. Sometimes, the shaking leads to wrestling among males… and maybe even more shaking, until the loser retreats. See the video at National Geographic Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!

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