Neatorama

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• The Girl Who Must Eat Every 15 Minutes To Stay Alive
• Buckyballs: Gold, Silver, and Black Editions
• TODAY IS CAPS LOCK DAY
• 30 Years of Macs in 2 Minutes
• Hipster Fashion Cycle
• Milk. It Does Your Lawn Good
• Marilyn Monroe Chest X-Ray Sold for $45,000
• Stone Carved Tweets
• Being Good (or Evil) Gives You Strength
• Why Old Couples Look Alike
• Democrats: Party of Parasites?
• Law Schools Inflating Grades to Give Grads Competitive Advantage
• Batman's Best Panels Ever
• Threadcakes Has Started Again
• TypeFace/Off II (TV Titles)
• Quarantined Rapper is Now out of the Hospital
• Ten Neat Facts About Tron
• The CULT TV Book Interview/Giveaway
• Students Capture Video of Disintegrating Spacecraft

The Girl Who Must Eat Every 15 Minutes To Stay Alive Posted: 29 Jun 2010 12:39 AM PDT Most of us struggle to keep our weight down, but not Lizzie Velasquez. The 21-year-old woman from Austin, Texas actually has to eat every 15 minutes to say alive: Miss Velasquez has a rare condition which prevents her from gaining weight even though she eats up to 60 small meals a day. Despite consuming between 5,000 and 8,000 calories daily, the communications student, has never tipped over 4st 3lbs. "I weigh myself regularly and if I gain even one pound I get really excited," said 5ft 2 ins Miss Velasquez, who wears size triple zero clothes. [...] She is one of 3 people in the world with a rare disease that prevents her from gaining weight: Professor Garg and his team now believe Lizzie may have a form of Neonatal Progeroid Syndrome (NPS) which causes accelerated ageing, fat loss from the face and body, and tissue degeneration. People with PRS often have triangular and prematurely aged faces with a pointy nose. More at Telegraph: Link | Lizzie’s Website – via Arbroath After the jump, an interview with Motah: [YouTube Clip] More at Motah: Link

Buckyballs: Gold, Silver, and Black Editions Posted: 28 Jun 2010 11:11 PM PDT Buckyballs – $28.95 to $34.95 How do you follow something that’s so fun it was voted Toy of the Year by Rolling Stone Magazine? Well, for an encore, Jake Bronstein and Craig Zucker came up with new colored Buckyballs. The silver, gold, and black editions of Buckyballs are now available from the NeatoShop. Best of all, every purchase will get you a Mystery Bonus: Link

TODAY IS CAPS LOCK DAY Posted: 28 Jun 2010 08:53 PM PDT IN HONOR OF BILLY MAYS, WHO DIED ONE YEAR AGO TODAY, WRITE IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS LIKE A FIRST-TIME INTERNET USER. THUS DECLARES BUZZFEED: WE SHALL BE A LIVING MEMORY OF HIS BOOMING VOICE, ECHOING THROUGHOUT TIME AND OUR INFOMERCIAL RERUNS. SO LET IT BE DONE. LINK VIA ACE OF SPADES HQ | IMAGE: SCRAPETV BUT THAT’S NOT ALL! SEE ALSO: 5 STRANGEST PRODUCTS PITCHED BY BILLY MAYS

30 Years of Macs in 2 Minutes Posted: 28 Jun 2010 07:23 PM PDT (You Tube Link) This video is an OD to the Mac by way of the Mac Museum, a two minute rendition of simple tech desktop computers like the Mac II, IMac G4 and G5 to the more advanced IMac Core 2 Duo and IPad. My introduction to the Mac was the little Mac Classic which isn’t featured in this video. They’ve come a long way since then. Link

Hipster Fashion Cycle Posted: 28 Jun 2010 05:19 PM PDT The infographic above deconstructs the natural cycle of hipster fashion, using the example of a hat. Do our findings line up what you've seen? Fashion trends come and go. This  infographic shows the fickleness of fashion, Link – Via Cakehead Loves Evil See also: I Blame Hipsters

Milk. It Does Your Lawn Good Posted: 28 Jun 2010 04:32 PM PDT If you want thick and beautiful lawn, don’t reach for the fertilizer – go to the fridge and get some milk instead! David Wetzel, a former steel executive, told a conference of farmers in Linn that when he started a second career as a dairy farmer in 2002, he doused parts of his 320-acre farm with skim milk, which was a byproduct of his farm’s specialty butters and cheeses. He soon discovered that his cattle preferred those fields. He called in an expert to figure out what was going on, and the result was a bit staggering: His milk-fed land yielded 1,100 more pounds of grass per acre than untreated land. [...] Wetzel said he began making butters and cheeses that required only the fats from the milk that his cows produced, which left behind large quantities of skim milk as a waste product. To dispose of it, he would drive up and down a portion of his pasture with milk pouring out of a tank. He dumped up to 600 gallons of skim milk on the field every other day. "I came from a background that has nothing to do with farming," Wetzel said. "So I don’t know the do’s and don’ts. I don’t have any relatives that would say, ‘You can’t do that.’ So I just kind of did what felt right." One day, he noticed that his cows favored that patch of field. The grass felt more supple and looked healthier and more dense in that area. Link

Marilyn Monroe Chest X-Ray Sold for $45,000 Posted: 28 Jun 2010 04:25 PM PDT Someone must’ve really liked Marilyn Monroe – either that or chest X-ray – because they’ve shelled out $45,000 for it: A 1954 x-ray of the stunning starlet’s chest sold at auction in Las Vegas on Sunday for a sizable $45,000. This was well above the estimated $800 to $1,200 it was expected to fetch. The bizarre medical photograph was one of several of Monroe’s belongings that were up for bid at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino via Julien’s Auctions over the weekend. "[The x-ray] was taken around the time she was believed to be pregnant, and rumor has it that she had a miscarriage," President/CEO Darren Julien told the Daily News back in April. Link (Photo: Julien’s Auctions)

Stone Carved Tweets Posted: 28 Jun 2010 02:57 PM PDT What happens when you mix the fleeting stream of tweets and something a bit more long-lasting? Oh say, something carved in stone? Autobahn and Richard Wendling teamed for this rockin’ art project called #StoneCarvedTweets. More photos after the jump: See also: Twaggies

Being Good (or Evil) Gives You Strength Posted: 28 Jun 2010 02:42 PM PDT Harvard researcher Kurt Gray discovered the key to improved physical endurance without any exercise: just be good (or evil, for that matter). New research from Harvard University suggests that moral actions may increase people’s capacity for willpower and physical endurance. Study participants who did good deeds — or even just imagined themselves helping others — were better able to perform a subsequent task of physical endurance. The research, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, shows a similar or even greater boost in physical strength following mean-spirited deeds. Researcher Kurt Gray, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard, explains these effects as a self-fulfilling prophecy in morality. “People perceive those who do good and evil to have more efficacy, more willpower, and less sensitivity to discomfort,” Gray said. “By perceiving themselves as good or evil, people embody these perceptions, actually becoming more capable of physical endurance.” Link (Ambigram: Punya Mishra)

Why Old Couples Look Alike Posted: 28 Jun 2010 02:41 PM PDT Why do old couples who’ve been married for a long time start to look like each other? Science has the answer! University of Michigan psychologist Robert Zajonc analyzed photographs of couples taken when they were newly weds and those taken decades later: The results showed that the couples had grown to look more like each other over time. And, the happier that the couple said they were, the more likely they were to have increased in their physical similarity. Zajonc suggested that older couples looked more alike because people in close contact mimic each other’s facial expressions. In other words, if your partner has a good sense of humor and laughs a lot, he or she will probably develop laugh lines around their mouth — and so will you. Link

Democrats: Party of Parasites? Posted: 28 Jun 2010 02:41 PM PDT Photo: Donald Bradley/Kansas City Star Are Democrats a party of parasites who give handouts to people who don’t work, by taxing those who do? That’s what farmer Donald Jungerman claimed when he put up a trailer along a freeway in Missouri with the words: Are you a Producer or Parasite Democrats – Party of Parasites Well, it turns out that Jungerman himself got government handouts, to the tune of over $1 million! After a story about Jungerman’s trailer ran in Sunday’s Star, however, some readers called him a hypocrite for criticizing others for getting government help while taking government subsidies paid for by taxpayers. Jungerman said he put up the sign to protest people who pay no taxes, but, “Always have their hand out for whatever the government will give them” in social programs. Crop subsidies are different, he said. When crop prices dip below a certain point, the federal government makes up the difference with a subsidy payment. Donald Bradley of the Kansas City Star has the story of the classic "in my case, it’s completely different" defense: Link

Law Schools Inflating Grades to Give Grads Competitive Advantage Posted: 28 Jun 2010 02:38 PM PDT Psst! Want higher grades without studying? All you have to do is enroll law schools: The school is retroactively inflating its grades, tacking on 0.333 to every grade recorded in the last few years. The goal is to make its students look more attractive in a competitive job market. In the last two years, at least 10 law schools have deliberately changed their grading systems to make them more lenient. These include law schools like New York University and Georgetown, as well as Golden Gate University and Tulane University, which just announced the change this month. Some recruiters at law firms keep track of these changes and consider them when interviewing, and some do not. Law schools seem to view higher grades as one way to rescue their students from the tough economic climate — and perhaps more to the point, to protect their own reputations and rankings. Once able to practically guarantee gainful employment to thousands of students every year, the schools are now fielding complaints from more and more unemployed graduates, frequently drowning in student debt. What’s that? You’re concerned about ethics? Well, these are lawyers we’re talking about. Come to think of it, this does explain quite a bit (kidding! No lawsuits, please!) Catherine Rampell of The New York Times has more: Link (Photo: Mark Graham/NY Times)

Batman's Best Panels Ever Posted: 28 Jun 2010 02:00 PM PDT Chris Sims of Comics Alliance offers up his choices for the 18 best panels in Batman’s 700+ issue history. He stipulates that they have to be actual panels (not poster art), Batman must be in the panel, and no full-page panels. The one above is from “Fear for Sale” by Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis (Detective Comics #570). If there’s one thing I’ve learned from two and a half decades reading Batman comics, it’s that that dude straight up loves to punch people. As you might expect, this means there are some truly fantastic chin-checks delivered over the past 70 years, but nobody — not even Neal Adams — makes Batman deliver an uppercut quite as solid as Alan Davis in his all-too-brief late ’80s run. That thing is just textbook perfect form: Great extension, moving forward to maximize power, and if the Scarecrow’s mask hadn’t been attached, I’m pretty sure Batman would’ve punched his head clean off. Link for more of the best panels in Batman’s history.

Threadcakes Has Started Again Posted: 28 Jun 2010 11:34 AM PDT Last year I announced the Threadcakes competition after it had already rolled to a close, but now’s your chance to actually participate in the contest. Simply choose your favorite Threadless shirt, then turn it into a cake and submit the image to the Threadcakes gallery. The prizes aren’t listed yet, but I’m sure they will include some awesome shirts. The inspiration from the cake above can be seen here.

TypeFace/Off II (TV Titles) Posted: 28 Jun 2010 09:36 AM PDT Last week’s quiz on movie poster fonts was a lot of fun… how about trying it with TV shows? Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss does just that. Try to guess the TV show (or network) by the typeface used in the title alone. This time, you have a list of the shows to select from on the blog post -IF you want to use them. I only scored 70%, but I was in a hurry. I got all the old shows correct! Link

Quarantined Rapper is Now out of the Hospital Posted: 28 Jun 2010 08:12 AM PDT Christiaan Van Vuuren became a viral video star when he produced a rap video while under quarantine for drug-resistant tuberculosis. His quarantine lasted longer than he expected, so he produced a second video. Thankfully, Van Vuuren is now home from the hospital after living there in isolation for six months: His spoof clips and comedic raps about his time in hospital – about 13 of them have been posted to YouTube – have been viewed nearly 1.5 million times and van Vuuren’s online celebrity even got him a regular gig on prime time national news in New Zealand, rapping the news of the day. Asked how he felt about his imminent departure from hospital, van Vuuren said he was “buzzing”. His clear test results only came back on Friday. “I’m just pumped to get home and sleep in my own bed, breathe fresh air and enjoy some of the sunlight … I’m just excited to get back into life in the real world again,” he said in a phone interview. Link | Photo: Stuff.co.nz

Ten Neat Facts About Tron Posted: 28 Jun 2010 08:02 AM PDT Has it really been 28 years since the movie Tron played in theaters? That’s a long time to wait for a sequel! As Disney prepares for the release of the new film Tron: Legacy, let’s look back at the groundbreaking 1982 movie that opened the door to computer-generated special effects at NeatoGeek. Link

The CULT TV Book Interview/Giveaway Posted: 28 Jun 2010 08:00 AM PDT The Huffington Post has called Soft Skull Press "The literary version of a punk rock label.” Neatoramanauts have a different expression for that: "a big bowl of awesome!" The good folks over at Soft Skull have been kind enough to give us a few copies of one of their latest, most awesome books, The Cult TV Book, edited by Stacey Abbott. All you have to do to win one is read our interview with Stacey below and then answer the two questions at the end of the interview. When you have your answers, send them to me: david 'at' neatorama.com. We'll pick winners at random and shoot you an e-mail to find out where you want your book sent. Pretty easy, right? —— Now, on with the interview!—— Neatorama: In the book, you talk about how cult TV was previously just for geeks (“socially awkward teenage boys”), but has now become mainstream. Just to cite one example, you show how fan conventions used to be thought of as freakish, but now they’re crucial for networks and studios. What’s changed? SA: Television has changed.  With the move away from the big networks to a much more competitive televisual landscapes with many smaller cable, pay, satellite channels all competing for audiences, the loyal niche audience is now very attractive to broadcasters and sponsors.  Channels and networks aren't necessarily looking for the big audiences (although they are happy when they get them) but rather a fairly affluent and committed audience who will keep coming back to watch their favourite shows on a weekly basis.   This means that the fans of cult television are more important to TV now.  This is why conventions have become so popular and new shows are previewed at events like Comic-Con.  A successful preview of a TV show at Comic-Con provides a fantastic amount of great press for a show before it has even aired. Neatorama: Later, you also argue that part of the change is merely the world’s perception, which has also changed. In what ways? SA: Two major things have changed. First, many creators/producers of programmes that we would call cult are self-admitted fans of cult television. People like Joss Whedon, J.J. Abrams, Ron Moore, Russell T. Davies, Stephen Moffat to name just a few.  The success of these writers/producers show that being a fan of cult television is not a dead end street but rather a potential path to success.  These people have very successful lives and so the image of the fan with 'no life' is being gradually dissipated. The second thing that has contributed to this perception change is the internet.  The internet invites online discussion of all TV shows so many people who would not, in the past, describe themselves as Cult TV fans are now engaging in many of the same practices. Fans of Sex and the City, The Sopranos, The Wire, Lost and Doctor Who contribute to fan forums, online discussion groups, and engage in detailed discussion and analysis of their favourite shows. The practices of the Cult TV fan are now quite common. Neatorama: If, as you and your co-writers argue, audiences really want quirky, innovative programming, why do the networks continue to spend millions on cookie-cutter pilots? SA: While audiences (some but not all) respond to quirky and innovative programming, it is difficult for the networks to anticipate what take off next with audiences. Networks don't want to gamble too much so there is the desire to replicate success.  Sometimes this works – Heroes definitely came on the heels of the success of Lost, and often it is not.  Also, while, as we argue in the book, more audiences are interested in this type of cult programme now then ever before, some audiences are not interested in making the kind of commitment that it takes to watch Lost or Battlestar Galactica, so the networks do produce loads of series that are far more formulaic and therefore easier to dip in and out of. Neatorama: How long before the networks and studios start paying attention to Webisodes and start sinking money into pilots online? SA: Good question and no easy answer.  At the moment Webisodes serve a purpose for the networks as an ancillary text and more and more people are watching TV and film online so this might change yet. But I'm not sure the networks feel confident in the internet in terms of finances. It is a gradual process I think, but will eventually go there. Neatorama: I had a meeting at A&E recently with a woman about a show I was pitching and I said it would be perfect for the Web. The development person looked at me like I’d actually just said I wanted to copulate with her. Why have they been so reluctant to create content for the Web if that’s where the eyeballs are? SA: That is a funny story. I think it is transitional. More and more people are watching things online but not everyone yet. And networks, even if they are aiming at niche audiences, want to target as large a proportion of that audience as possible. I think the perception is that the material will get lost online. But this will change, I believe.  Most networks are cautious and they require creative people working for them to spear-head major changes. Neatorama: You spend a lot of ink discussing the success of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and how ground-breaking it was. Of all the ground it broke, what do you think was the most significant in terms of influencing the future of TV? SA: Did we talk a lot about Buffy. I did try and keep it balanced. But it is a key show particularly in many of the ways we have talked about above.  It attracted people who would not necessarily call themselves cult TV fans and they began to engage with the show on a cult level.  But to answer your question, I would say that it marked a key shift away from the episodic quality of much of TV toward asking your audience to engage with much broader and developing seasonal arcs. The characters on this series grew up, they evolved and the show grew up and evolved with them.   The show has memory and it encourages the audience to share that memory not just move on from episode to episode and forget what came before. As much as I love The X-Files, one of the frustrations of the later seasons is that Scully still plays the skeptic despite everything she has been witness to. It is unbelievable that she would still be so resistant to the supernatural.  On Buffy the characters reflect back on the audience and their actions often show how they have evolved as people.   This is one way I think that Buffy has influenced TV. Now we see this type of memory in all types of shows. Neatorama: Let’s talk about probably the most famous of the cult programs, Star Trek. Why did it take nearly 20 years for someone to hit on the bright idea to create episode number 80? (The original three seasons in the late ’60s were comprised of 79 episodes.) I mean, with all the fans, all the conventions, all the movies, etc. I’m just left scratching my head in wonder over this. SA: I know what you mean. It does seem really ridiculous in retrospect. In the period where the show was building its audience in syndication, networks weren't interested in cult television. This was a show that failed and while it did well in syndication, they weren't going to be interested in another show that would generate smallish audiences. In the late 1970s when the fandom was really hitting its peak, they did begin to think of making another series but this then generated into Star Trek: The Motion Picture and once the franchise went into movies, no-one at this point would consider moving it back to TV. At that time, TV was the poor relation (this is changing now).  By the time of Next Gen, Paramount was moving into television so transferring a successful film franchise seemed like a good move. It wasn't just a question of returning to the original show. They were drawing in fans of the films as well. Neatorama: Do you think Trekkies elevated the original series above and beyond? Was the drama that compelling? The action, that exciting? In short: were those 79 episodes really all that? (BTW, I grew up watching them, totally loving them, but never became anything remotely like a hard-core Trekkie.) SA: I was a huge Star Trek fan as a child (probably my first cult TV experience although I wouldn't describe myself as a hard-core Trekkie).  I think that like any low budget series, the show has its strong and week episodes. 79 episodes in three years is a lot of television and so it is not surprising that not all the episodes are great. But it do think that at its best, the drama was compelling and innovative. This was a Utopian vision of the future that had a strong message about humanity.  Some of the best episodes such as "Balance of Terror", "Space Seed", "Wolf in the Fold" and my personal favourite "City on the Edge of Forever" are very well written, with exciting action and in the case of "City on the Edge of Forever" are profoundly moving. Also, the focus upon the male friendship of Kirk, Spock and Bones was and is fresh and quite unusual. Neatorama: If you could have lunch with only one, who’d you pick and why? Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner or Wil Wheaton? SA: Leonard Nimoy – Spock is the most complex character on the show and his is the character who evolves the most throughout the entire TV series and films.  Also, he directed some of the movies so his perspective would be very insightful. Neatorama: Cult fan members never like it when something goes mainstream. Indeed, at least in the case of something like Borat, mainstream = certain death. But some cults become so big, like Trekkies, that they could be considered mainstream even though they’re cult-ish. Where do you draw the line? At what point is it no longer a cult? SA: The nature of cult is changing. A show like Lost was huge initially but its puzzle like narrative structure and the mythology of the island invited cult engagement with the show so I would say it is cult.  Similarly Doctor Who is a national obsession in the UK and is aimed at family audiences, but it has a huge cult following (and has for years).  It is difficult to know where to draw the line but I would say that if a series generates cult fan response, ie. emotional commitment, loyal viewing, engagement with the series beyond just watching it on a weekly basis etc. Then it is cult or at least as a cult quality.  But having said this there will always be those cult shows that are cult because the fans found them – Firefly, Wonderfalls, etc.  And that will hold a special place in cult. Neatorama: In many ways, the idea of “the power of the cult” sort of exemplifies the power of The Long Tail, as Chris Anderson calls it. Has the music industry been faster to recognize this power than the movie industry? If so, why? SA: I think that Film industry is based on opening weekends box office. Get everyone to go out and see it right away and then bring it out on DVD in 3 months and continue to make money off it and the various ancillary products. If one were being cynical, you could see the film release as the promotion for everything that comes out afterward and cult doesn't operate this way. It is often a small and slow discovery. Neatorama: Talk a little bit about the process of collecting all these wonderful essays in the book. What was the process like? SA: Thanks for saying the essays were wonderful.  It was a great experience working on this book (and editing books isn't always that way although I have been very lucky). People who write about cult television, while being scholarly and rigorous researchers, are also fans of the TV shows that they are writing about. So they are incredibly committed to the process.   So for putting this book together began with numerous conversations with friends and colleagues about what topics and television shows should be covered in this book. Then I did quite a bit of research into who was working in this area. Many of the people I've worked with before, others I had read their work in relation to my research.  In most cases I approached each other with a general idea of what they might contribute to the book, based upon their areas of expertise and what I thought would be necessary and useful for the book, and discussed what I had in mind and what they could deliver. In every case they came back with so much more than I could have imagined.   The best way of describing this process was to think of it as a series of really interesting discussions and debates about cult television. Neatorama: Were you ever tempted to write the whole thing yourself? SA: I would have loved to but it is such a huge topic, it would have taken me years to just watch every TV programme sufficiently to be able to write about them. Also, I think the topic benefits from a multitude of voices and understanding of the subject. As the book, I hope, shows, there is no one definition of cult and having different people write about it drives that home I think. Neatorama: What’s next for you? What can we expect to see? SA: Well I am still immersed in television studies. I am currently co-writing, with Lorna Jowett who is a contributor to The Cult TV Book, a book about TV Horror. The aim is to try and unpack how the genre has evolved through television and what distinguishes it from literary and cinematic horror.  Some have argued in the past that horror and television are incompatible and we are challenging that argument. – Question #1: You can probably tell that Stacey is British from the way she spells some words. Which words am I referring to? Question #2: How many episodes of the original Star Trek series were made in total? When you have your answers, send them to me: david 'at' neatorama.com.

Students Capture Video of Disintegrating Spacecraft Posted: 28 Jun 2010 07:51 AM PDT Consider this awesome scenario: your science teacher assigns you to imagine a situation in which a fiery spacecraft plummeted to earth, and you had to record it for later analysis. You work on the idea, and then find out that this is not a hypothetical situation at all. You are really going to record a fiery spacecraft re-entering earth’s atmosphere! That’s what Brookline, Massachusetts high school science teacher Ron Dantowitz did to his three best students, James Breitmeyer, Brigitte Berman, and Yiannis Karavas. For 6 months, they worked hard on their assignment, never suspecting the surprise Dantowitz had in store. On March 12th, he stunned them with the news: “The mission is real, and you’re going along for the ride.” In early June, Dantowitz and the teenagers traveled halfway around the world to help NASA track Japan’s Hayabusa spacecraft as it plunged into Earth’s atmosphere at 27,000 mph and shattered over the Australian outback. After boarding the DC-8 and flying to 41,000 feet, their hard work finally paid off when they successfully recorded the fiery re-entry: See the video, and read all about the mission and the high school science project at NASA. Link -via reddit This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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