Neatorama

---

• Cthulhu Christmas Elf
• Dentists Repair Elephant's Tusk
• Emergency Inflatable Brain
• Kinect Hacked to Play Super Mario Bros.
• Greedo in Heels
• Why Is Cthulhu on This 300-Year-Old Gravestone?
• Microsoft Developing a Shape-Shifting Touchscreen
• How AT&T Shut Down the Development of Magnetic Tape
• April 11, 1954: The Most Boring Day in the 20th Century
• Marbled Paper Designs
• Psychologists: Upper-Class People Have Trouble Recognizing the Emotions of Other People
• Who Is the Fastest Classic Video Game Character?
• Pipe Wrench Table
• Man Plays Ukulele with His Teeth
• Hoxton Street Monster Supplies
• The Incredible Flying Nonagenarian
• Recent Footage of a Thylacine?
• Men Rob Pizzeria, Make Off with Bag Full of Dough

Cthulhu Christmas Elf Posted: 27 Nov 2010 04:44 AM PST Every year, artist Amy Rawson creates a new Christmas version of Cthulhu, usually in felt (see 2007, 2008, and 2009). This year, Cthulhu is an elf made of clay! This one-of-a-kind sculpture is for sale through Rawson’s Etsy store. Link

Dentists Repair Elephant's Tusk Posted: 27 Nov 2010 04:40 AM PST A 27-year-old elephant named Devidasan developed a painful 19-inch crack in his tusk over the past five years. CV Pradeep, a dentist in Kerala, India, did some research and decided to fill the crack with the same resin used to repair human teeth. The difference: repairing the tusk took 47 tubes of resin in a two-hour operation! “It was literally an elephantine task, because we had to find specialist equipment and modify it,” Dr Pradeep said. “The main difference between this and a similar operation carried out on humans is that we were not able to use X-ray screening, because none of our mobile X-ray units was large enough to suit the elephant’s needs.” Dr Pradeep, a professor at the PSM dental college in the town of Trichur, said that if the crack remained untreated dirt would have gathered inside it and potentially caused a deadly infection. The elephant was not tranquilized, and remained cooperative through the procedure. The repair seems to have eased his toothache. Link -via Arbroath

Emergency Inflatable Brain Posted: 26 Nov 2010 09:14 PM PST Emergency Inflatable Brain – $6.95 Mental meltdown be gone! Emergency inflatable brain to the rescue! If only it were that simple. For more inflatable fun visit the NeatoShop.

Kinect Hacked to Play Super Mario Bros. Posted: 26 Nov 2010 06:11 PM PST (Video Link) YouTube user yankeyan altered his Kinect gaming interface so that he could play Super Mario Bros. by mimicking Mario’s movements: I programmed it to recognize my motions and passed the virtual button presses to the NES emulator. I could have placed a simulated keypad right in front of me that I can press with my hands, but I thought full body gestures were more in the spirit of Kinect. Of course, Mario isn’t designed to be played like this, so this is really really hard. via Technabob

Greedo in Heels Posted: 26 Nov 2010 06:11 PM PST Greedo may not have shot first, but at least you thought the Star Wars character was male. Well, the character might be male, but he was played by two actors because of scheduling problems: Maria de Aragon and Paul Blake. I believe this photo probably shows Aragon in costume. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Why Is Cthulhu on This 300-Year-Old Gravestone? Posted: 26 Nov 2010 05:56 PM PST Jess Nevins of io9 has pictures of the tombstone marking the grave of Rev. Ichabod Wiswall (1637-1700) in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Though largely forgotten today, Wiswall was a prominent political figure in 17th Century Massachusetts. It is unclear why his grave bears the image of cosmic entity Cthulhu: Duxbury does not feature in any of Lovecraft’s fiction; “Arkham” is based on Salem, “Innsmouth” is based on a combination of Ipswich and Gloucester, and “Dunwich” is based on Athol. But Duxbury was no stranger to sea serpents, even in Wiswall’s day. The English writer John Josselyn’s An Account of Two Voyages to New-England (1674) described the 1639 sighting of a sea serpent off Cape Anne, north of Duxbury, which sparked a rash of sea-serpent sightings along the Massachusetts coast, including Duxbury. And in 1857 Henry Thoreau wrote in his journal that Daniel Webster had seen a sea-serpent off the coast of Duxbury. So it makes a kind of sense for a Lovecraftian cephalopod to appear on the Reverend Wiswall’s gravestone. The only question remaining is, is Wiswall dead in his grave, or does he merely wait there, dreaming? In the comments, propose your own explanation for the mark of Cthulhu on this gravestone. Link

Microsoft Developing a Shape-Shifting Touchscreen Posted: 26 Nov 2010 05:47 PM PST This week, Microsoft filed a patent for a new type of touchscreen that can display variable textures: Whereas previous screens produced only an illusion of texture, Microsoft proposes producing a real texture, using pixel-sized shape-memory plastic cells that can be ordered to protrude from the surface on command.[...] Microsoft’s named inventor, Erez Kikin-Gil at the firm’s Redmond campus in Washington state, says in the patent that the idea is aimed at large table-sized computing displays such as the company’s Surface, rather than phones or tablets. A projector built into the Surface displays a computer image onto the table top from below. As the user touches it, infrared reflections from their fingertips are detected by cameras beneath the table and used to pinpoint the position of the finger and lend touchscreen capability. In the patent, Microsoft proposes coating the display with a light-induced shape-memory polymer. This becomes hard and protruding when one wavelength of ultraviolet light is transmitted at a pixel, and soft when another wavelength hits it. By modulating these wavelengths, texture can be created, the patent claims. It is this difference which sets Microsoft’s design apart from other variable surface touchscreens. Link via DVICE | Image: Paramount

How AT&T Shut Down the Development of Magnetic Tape Posted: 26 Nov 2010 05:30 PM PST In 1934, Clarence Hickman, a Bell Labs engineer, invented an early telephone answering machine. The innovation that led to this machine was a revolutionary form of data storage: magnetic tape. Bell Labs ordered that the project be shelved and Hickman to end his research. Why? At Gizmodo, Tim Wu explains: AT&T firmly believed that the answering machine, and its magnetic tapes, would lead the public to abandon the telephone. More precisely, in Bell’s imagination, the very knowledge that it was possible to record a conversation would ” greatly restrict the use of the telephone,” with catastrophic consequences for its business. Businessmen, for instance, the theory supposed, might fear the potential use of a recorded conversation to undo a written contract. Tape recorders would also inhibit discussing obscene or ethically dubious matters. In sum, the very possibility of magnetic recording, it was feared, would ” change the whole nature of telephone conversations” and ” render the telephone much less satisfactory and useful in the vast majority of cases in which it is employed.”[...] Link | Photo by Flickr user Tom Raftery used under Creative Commons license

April 11, 1954: The Most Boring Day in the 20th Century Posted: 26 Nov 2010 04:15 PM PST Computer scientist William Tunstall-Pedoe, developer of the search engine True Knowledge, has determined that April 11, 1954 was the most boring day of the 20th Century. His conclusion is based on an estimate of notable births, deaths, and events: Every day something of significance happens, a person is born who is destined for fame, there is an event in the arts or sports, history is created. With 300 million of these facts fed into the "brain" of True Knowledge, Tunstall-Pedoe's Cambridge company, the computer was asked: "What was the most boring day in the 20th century?"[...] Nearly five million people are using True Knowledge every month, asking their own questions and contributing factoids and context to improve the quality of search. Many of these facts include dates. The system has a unique understanding of the importance of the entities in the world which can be calculated as a number, such as events beginning and ending, births, deaths, wars, founding of businesses and the release of publications. So you can find out what happened on a particular day. For example, who was born on May 3, 1983? "It occurred to us that we are able to objectively measure the importance of every day in history. Some days are highly eventful and on some days far less happens and we can also objectively estimate the importance of these events. Link via First Things | Photo by Flickr user Samuel Kreutz used under Creative Commons license

Marbled Paper Designs Posted: 26 Nov 2010 03:44 PM PST You may have seen hand-printed marbled paper on the inside covers of books, or inside old luggage or cabinets. This pattern was achieved by floating inks and other chemicals on a liquid surface and then pressing paper against it. Variations in the basic process lead to different types of patterns, like this Spanish moiré on Turkish with gold vein pattern. The pattern is created by making a Turkish pattern where the first colour used is gold. As further colours are dropped to complete the Turkish pattern, the gold constricts into veins. Then a paper, which has been folded in half is laid onto the bath, moving slightly from side to side to create the curvilinear gradations typical of this pattern. Learn how other vintage patterns were made at BibliOdyssey. Link

Psychologists: Upper-Class People Have Trouble Recognizing the Emotions of Other People Posted: 26 Nov 2010 12:25 PM PST Psychological researchers Michael W. Kraus, Stéphane Côté, and Dacher Keltner noticed that poorer people tended to be more dependent upon relationships that wealthier people: For example, if you can’t afford to buy support services, such as daycare service for your children, you have to rely on your neighbors or relatives to watch the kids while you attend classes or run errands[...] So they wondered if lower-class people were able to perceive the emotional states of others at a higher level than upper-class people. They decided to use educational attainment as a determinant of social class and tested the comparative ability of college graduates and non-college graduates at reading facial expressions: These results suggest that people of upper-class status aren’t very good at recognizing the emotions other people are feeling. The researchers speculate that this is because they can solve their problems, like the daycare example, without relying on others — they aren’t as dependent on the people around them. A final experiment found that, when people were made to feel that they were at a lower social class than they actually were, they got better at reading emotions. This shows that “it’s not something ingrained in the individual,” Kraus says. “It’s the cultural context leading to these differences.” He says this work helps show that stereotypes about the classes are wrong. “It’s not that a lower-class person, no matter what, is going to be less intelligent than an upper-class person. It’s all about the social context the person lives in, and the specific challenges the person faces. If you can shift the context even temporarily, social class differences in any number of behaviors can be eliminated.” Link via Glenn Reynolds | Photo by Flickr user Ibrahim Iujaz used under Creative Commons license

Who Is the Fastest Classic Video Game Character? Posted: 26 Nov 2010 11:59 AM PST (Video Link) Animator Steve Williams imagined a race between classic video game characters. The winner was surprising, but it makes sense. via Geekosystem

Pipe Wrench Table Posted: 26 Nov 2010 11:51 AM PST Designer Jonathan Niemuth made this coffee table. His portfolio contains other mechanical innovations, including a hand truck that can climb stairs. Link via Dude Craft

Man Plays Ukulele with His Teeth Posted: 26 Nov 2010 11:45 AM PST Siuta Vealia from Aukland, New Zealand, can play a ukulele with his teeth: It’s pretty easy, he reckons. You play two strings with your top teeth and the other two with your bottom row. But he admits his talent is “quite unusual” and can shock his audience. “When I start playing with my teeth they’re surprised,” he says. At the link, you can watch a video of Vealia performing. About 40 seconds into it, he begins playing with his teeth. Link | Photo: Shane Wenzlick

Hoxton Street Monster Supplies Posted: 26 Nov 2010 08:20 AM PST Wouldn’t you love to browse a shop like this? Hoxton Street Monster Supplies in London is a Ministry of Stories project that gives children a place to go for inspiration and where they can write and get help with their school work. It was inspired by Dave Eggars’ 826 project responsible for the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store in New York. The Hoxton Street store shelves are filled with items like brain jam and organ marmalade, pickled eyeballs, human snot, and my favorite, a canned vague sense of unease. Link -via b3ta

The Incredible Flying Nonagenarian Posted: 26 Nov 2010 08:16 AM PST Olga Kotelko is an athlete. She holds 23 world records, mostly track records for the category of age 90 and up! Kotelko is 91 years old and runs, jumps, and throws a javelin in “masters” meets for those age 35 and over. Her success has led scientists to study her abilities in hopes of finding out how some bodies age at a predictable rate and others don’t. Kotelko herself speaks often of the perils of getting carried away. "If you undertrain, you might not finish," she says. "If you overtrain, you might not start." But there's some evidence that, in trying to find the sweet spot between staying in race shape and avoiding the medical tent, a lot of seniors athletes aren't training hard enough — or at least, aren't training the right way to maximally exploit what their body can still do. Kotelko plans to continue competing and is looking forward to a new set of world records -when she reaches the “95 and over” age category. Link -via Buzzfeed (Image credit: Patrik Giardino for The New York Times)

Recent Footage of a Thylacine? Posted: 26 Nov 2010 08:13 AM PST (YouTube link) The thylacine, or “Tasmanian tiger” is considered to have gone extinct in 1936, when the last known specimen died at a zoo. But occasional sightings are reported, if not confirmed. Last year, Murray McAllister caught this nine seconds of footage among hours of recordings in the Australian wilderness. Could this be a thylacine? Read his story of searching for the creature on his blog. Link -via Animal Planet Previously: Thylacine Video

Men Rob Pizzeria, Make Off with Bag Full of Dough Posted: 26 Nov 2010 07:10 AM PST And not “dough” as in the slang term for money, but actual pizza dough: According to court papers, LaRosa and an accomplice followed the owners of Brothers Pizzeria on Staten Island. After donning masks, the papers say, they pointed guns and demanded the men turn over a bag they believed held the day’s proceeds. But instead, the bag was full of pizza dough. Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user Jeff Kubina used under Creative Commons license

You are subscribed to email updates from Neatorama To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610