Neatorama

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• Film Clock
• Cops Arrest Moron
• Retractable Kitchen Island
• Duck Hunt Addition
• Sumo Wrestler Plans to Become World's Heaviest Marathon Runner
• The Hathaway Effect: When Anne Hathaway is in the News, Berkshire Hathaway's Stock Price Goes Up
• Agricultural Landscapes from Space
• First Person Mario
• WordCount
• The Ethics of Flying Coach: Who Gets The Armrests?
• Peel
• Ninja Matryoshka
• Nuclear Boy
• How "Tsunami" Joined the English Language
• Jorinapeka
• Brilliant Board Game Idea: The Waxing Game
• 7 Foot Wide House for Sale
• 12 Strange Performances of Star Trek Theme Music
• Space Auction to Fund Scholarships
• Movie Titles in Movies
• 10 More Geeky Love Songs

Film Clock Posted: 18 Mar 2011 09:46 PM PDT The 35 mm film may be gone forever, but it can still live in our hearts and our night table as this digital (oh the irony) Film Clock ($99.95) from the NeatoShop. Shaped like a giant 35 mm cartridge film in yellow cassette, the Film Clock displays both the time and calendar in its "film leader" display. Perfect for the photography lover in your life: Link | Gifts for Shutterbugs | F-Stop Watch

Cops Arrest Moron Posted: 18 Mar 2011 09:36 PM PDT Cops arrest morons all the time, but this time it’s special. They’ve arrested the Mr. Moron. The Smoking Gun was there: Joseph Moron was arrested Sunday on a variety of domestic abuse charges, according to Colorado police. The bust of the 35-year-old Moron came after his girlfriend contacted cops to say that he had assaulted her. Moron is pictured in the mug shot at right. Link

Retractable Kitchen Island Posted: 18 Mar 2011 07:21 PM PDT (Video Link) Apparently there’s an iPhone app that will make a kitchen island rise from the middle of your floor. Or something like that. Tim Thaler built this remarkable accessory: A hydraulic scissor lift is at bolted to the cement, and then a small frame is built on top of the scissor lift table. On top of that is a subfloor, flooring, and then the island. The cabinet doors are on the other side, and have safety push button switches that kill the electricity from the Smart Home Insteon switches, and prevent it from moving when the doors are not fully closed. via Make

Duck Hunt Addition Posted: 18 Mar 2011 04:20 PM PDT One of the three ducks in this picture was added by Etsy seller dpad. Can you tell which one? He made it with quarter inch tiles from old book covers. Link via DVICE

Sumo Wrestler Plans to Become World's Heaviest Marathon Runner Posted: 18 Mar 2011 01:37 PM PDT Kelly Gneiting, a champion sumo wrestler from Arizona, hopes to complete an upcoming marathon in under nine hours. If successful, he’ll be the heaviest marathon competitor ever according to Guinness World Records: “I have high self-esteem and believe I can do anything,” he told the Daily Telegraph. “I’m big, but I feel like I have a talent for this.” Mr Gneiting, who is originally from Idaho, is 6ft tall and has a 5ft waist. He is a three-time American sumo champion and has represented the US at the world championships. He said that his size made running uncomfortable. “It’s hard on my feet, my thighs and under my armpits,” he said. He plans to wear slick black Lycra leggings to prevent friction. The Telegraph (UK) notes that Gneiting weighs 29 stone, which converts to about 184 kilograms. Oh, those Europeans and their odd measurement systems! Link | Photo: Getty

The Hathaway Effect: When Anne Hathaway is in the News, Berkshire Hathaway's Stock Price Goes Up Posted: 18 Mar 2011 01:25 PM PDT Dan Mirvish of The Huffington Post noticed a positive correlation between an increase in the stock price of Warren Buffett’s company and actress Anne Hathaway doing something newsworthy. Here’s a sampling of his findings: Oct. 3, 2008 – Rachel Getting Married opens: BRK.A up .44% Jan. 5, 2009 – Bride Wars opens: BRK.A up 2.61% Feb. 8, 2010 – Valentine’s Day opens: BRK.A up 1.01% March 5, 2010 – Alice in Wonderland opens: BRK.A up .74% Nov. 24, 2010 – Love and Other Drugs opens: BRK.A up 1.62% Nov. 29, 2010 – Anne announced as co-host of the Oscars: BRK.A up .25% Now all of that is interesting, but correlation does not equate causality. However, as John Bates, a computer scientist who has worked in the financial sector notes, the correlation could become causality soon enough: Now, generally the correlations are between some statistical indicator and a stock or industry. “Let’s say a new instrument comes to an exchange, you might suddenly notice that that an instrument moves in conjunction with the insurance sector,” Bates posited. But it’s thought that some hedge funds are testing strategies out to mine news and social media datasets for other types of correlations. Does it happen a lot? Bates doesn’t think so, but it’s not out of the question. And, in any case, we’re going to see a lot of strange trading strategies as hedge fund managers’ computing resources grow ever more powerful and they are actually able to “correlate everything against everything.” Oh, it’s raining in Kazakhstan? Buy pork bellies in Brazil! And sell wheat in Kansas! Dump Apple stock! Why? Because the computer says that the 193 out of the last 240 times it rained in Kazakhstan, pork bellies in Brazil went up, and wheat prices and Apple shares went down. Mirvish Link and Bates Link via Kottke | Photo by Flickr user Anthony Citrano used under Creative Commons license For fun: in the comments, define “The Santoso Effect”.

Agricultural Landscapes from Space Posted: 18 Mar 2011 12:07 PM PDT Betsy Mason of Wired Science has a really neat post about how farming in various countries create strange agricultural landscapes as seen from above. This one above is from Libya: The lonely green circles in this image are center-pivot fields 0.6 miles in diameter in southeastern Libya near the Egyptian border. Known as the Al Khufrah Oasis, the fields are one of Libya’s largest agricultural projects. Virtually no area of Libya receives enough rainwater to grow crops, and the fields here are irrigated with water from an underground aquifer. The image was made by astronauts aboard the International Space Station on Oct. 28, 2004. Link

First Person Mario Posted: 18 Mar 2011 12:06 PM PDT What do you get when you turn Mario Bros. into a First Person Shooter (FPS)-style game? Well, you don’t have to wonder. Behold, First Person Mario, as modelled and animated by Brandon Laatsch and uploaded by Freddie Wong (YouTube star freddiew) – via Facerocker

WordCount Posted: 18 Mar 2011 12:05 PM PDT WordCount isn’t a new website (it won the 2003 American Institute of Graphic Arts’ award for Information Design and the 2005 People’s Choice Webby Awards), but it sure is a fun website for those of you who haven’t seen it before. WordCount creator Jonathan Harris of Number 27 explains: WordCount™ is an artistic experiment in the way we use language. It presents the 86,800 most frequently used English words, ranked in order of commonness. Each word is scaled to reflect its frequency relative to the words that precede and follow it, giving a visual barometer of relevance. The larger the word, the more we use it. The smaller the word, the more uncommon it is. The fun starts when you type in your favorite word, and see the words that are ranked next to it: Observing closely ranked words tells us a great deal about our culture. For instance, “God” is one word from “began”, two words from “start”, and six words from “war”. Another sequence is "america ensure oil opportunity". Conspiracists unite! As ever, the more one explores, the more is revealed. Though "Neatorama" isn’t in the archives, "neat" currently sits at 4808, with the string" neat magazines burn whisky pond." Link – via Book of Joe

The Ethics of Flying Coach: Who Gets The Armrests? Posted: 18 Mar 2011 12:03 PM PDT Illustration: Jonathan Carlson Ah, flying. It’s certainly not as glamorous as it used to be. Indeed, as @xenijardin tweeted out, Southwest is just like the chicken bus of the sky. But enough grousing: if we gotta fly, then we gotta fly. Endure the indignity of TSA searches (or at least have a creative fun of it), then get crammed in with hundreds of fellow sufferers flyers and, of course, sit on the tarmac for hours (or worse, toilet). But this all doesn’t mean that we get to be rude (sorry, Steven Slater, the passenger didna mean it!) No sir, civility has to be maintained. That’s why we’re alerting you to this article on the ethic of flying by The Wall Street Journal travel writer Scott McCartney of The Middle Seat. Starting with the ever important question of who gets the armrest: 1. You’re in the middle seat, between two strangers. Who gets the armrests? Anne Loew, veteran flight attendant: The folks in the aisle seat can lean toward the aisle, and the window-seat passenger has the window to lean on. The poor middle-seat passengers are suffering enough–they get both armrests. Gordon Bethune, former Continental Airlines chief executive: They do. James Vesper, frequent traveler: The middle seat gets both arm rests. Richard Wishner, frequent traveler: You share. The bigger guy gets the forward part of the armrest. Anna Post, etiquette expert: There is no innate winner of the arm-rest battle. If I’m in the middle seat, I try to claim one. They are not both yours for the duration. Kirk Hanson, Santa Clara University ethics professor: Fairness requires the allocation of at least one arm rest to each traveler. Therefore, the side seats get the "outbound" armrests away from the middle seat. The middle passenger gets both armrests, in part as compensation for the dreaded middle seat. Link

Peel Posted: 18 Mar 2011 11:39 AM PDT (YouTube link) Duane Keisler painted a tangerine, but couldn’t resist peeling it and helping himself to it …which he also painted. Link -via Metafilter

Ninja Matryoshka Posted: 18 Mar 2011 11:31 AM PDT Ninja Matryoshka – $13.95 Do you love Ninjas? Do you love Nesting Dolls? You are going to love the Ninja Matryoshka from the NeatoShop! The Ninja Matryoshka can kick that regular, old and boring Matryoshka’s butt!  It will happen so fast they won’t even see it coming. Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more neat Nesting Dolls!

Nuclear Boy Posted: 18 Mar 2011 11:28 AM PDT (YouTube link) A Japanese cartoon explains the situation at the Fukushima nuclear plant, in bathroom terms that children can understand. -via Everlasting Blort

How "Tsunami" Joined the English Language Posted: 18 Mar 2011 11:06 AM PDT The first use of the word “tsunami” in an English language publication was in the September 1896 issue of National Geographic Magazine. Eliza Ruhama Scidmore used the Japanese term to describe what we used to call a tidal wave or (more correctly) an earthquake wave. Scidmore’s article in National Geographic gave the world a gripping insight into the horror of the 1896 tsunami. A few survivors, who saw it advancing in the darkness, reported its height as 80 to 100 feet, she wrote. “With a difference of but thirty minutes in time between the southern and northern points, it struck the San-Riku coast and in a trice obliterated towns and villages.” In what today looks like an eery precursor of the 2011 tsunami in the same part of Japan, the 1896 wave “washed away and wrecked 9,313 houses, stranded some larger craft–steamers, schooners, and junks–and crushed or carried away 10,000 fishing boats…Thousands of acres of arable land were turned to wastes, projecting rocks offshore were broken, overturned, or moved hundreds of yards, shallows and bars were formed, and in some localities the entire shoreline was changed,” Scidmore reported. Read more about the 1896 disaster at NatGeo Newswatch. Link -Thanks, Marilyn!

Jorinapeka Posted: 18 Mar 2011 11:03 AM PDT You may have to play Jorinapeka through at least once to get the hang of it. The goal is to clear the colored balls, but clearing other balls along the way brings you more points. My best score was about 400, but some who have worked out the strategy have scored up to 8,000 points! Still, even if you aren’t great at it, this is a pleasant little game. Link -via Look at This

Brilliant Board Game Idea: The Waxing Game Posted: 18 Mar 2011 10:39 AM PDT (Video Link) The Glaze Brothers have a great idea for a board game. The Waxing Game is quite straighforward. A Candy Land-like board is filled with body parts. Roll the die and move your piece forward. From whichever location you land on, you must have your body hair ripped off. What a pleasant way to spend a quiet evening! via Kotaku

7 Foot Wide House for Sale Posted: 18 Mar 2011 10:14 AM PDT The Check House in Framlingham, UK — that’s the narrow building in the background — is only seven feet wide! It’s kind of upside-down because the first floor has a bedroom and the second floor has a kitchen and sitting room. The house, which has only 308 square feet of interior space, used to be part of a mill: The tiny Victorian property in Framlingham, Suffolk, has the kitchen on the first floor and the bedroom underneath – and once formed part of a steam mill. The one-bedroom house is part of the sought-after Mauldens Mill development. It is the last remaining Victorian part of the old steam mill. Realtor Link and Article Link via Born Rich | Photo: Clarke and Simpson

12 Strange Performances of Star Trek Theme Music Posted: 18 Mar 2011 09:26 AM PDT (Video Link) A couple of days ago, Neatoramanaut Michael Tapp sent us a video of a woman playing Star Trek theme music on a musical saw. Carol Pinchefsky of blastr rounded up a bunch of videos of other odd performances of Star Trek music, such as the above presentation by the guards at Buckingham Palace. I like this one especially because it includes the majestic opening music from Voyager. At the link, you can also listen to disco, accordion, and organ performances. Link

Space Auction to Fund Scholarships Posted: 18 Mar 2011 09:09 AM PDT How much would you pay for a dinner date with Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell? Or lunch with original Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter? How about skydiving with a shuttle astronaut? Or maybe you’d be more inclined to purchase some astronaut autographs, or objects that have been in space. These are all up for bid now at the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation during their spring auction. The ASF was founded by Mercury astronauts, and proceeds go to fund science and technology scholarships for deserving students. Bidding will close on March 26. Link

Movie Titles in Movies Posted: 18 Mar 2011 08:16 AM PDT (YouTube link) Redditor honsco edited 81 one movies to show the scenes where the title of the movie was mentioned. He got the idea to do all this work from a scene in the TV show Family Guy. -via reddit

10 More Geeky Love Songs Posted: 18 Mar 2011 06:08 AM PDT Last year, John Farrier wrote a great Neatogeek post about geeky love songs. While the twelve listed were great, there were still plenty more great geek ballads out there. Here are ten more love songs sure to get your nerd juices flowing. 1) Thomas Dolby: She Blinded Me With Science How is it nerdy? This is the song that inspired me to write this list. It's an ultimate geek love song in that a woman is able to seduce her love interest not through her looks but through chemistry and other scientific fields. Choice lyrics: It’s poetry in motion/And now she’s making love to me/The spheres are in commotion/The elements in harmony/She blinded me with science/”She blinded me with science!”/And hit me with technology Video: Video link 2) Marshall Gray: Critical Hit On My Heart How is it nerdy? It might just be impossible to write a romantic song with more Dungeons and Dragons references. Choice lyrics: I picked up spell resistance from the enchanted school/So I could bend up all these magic pretences/And though always use it as a general rule /This time I’m lowering all my defences Video: There's no official video for the song, but here's a YouTube video with the song. Video link 3) Mc Chris: Nerd Girl How is it nerdy? MC Chris is one of the biggest stars of the nerdcore hip hop scene and this serenade to a nerd shows just how geeky he can be, even when discussing matters of the heart. Choice lyrics: She’s romantic, known to panic/With anxiety attacks/Literary, it’s so scary/Reading Brontes back to back/She’s playing Ragnarok on her mom’s Magnavox/She’s underneath my skin like a million nanobots Video: Video link 4) Bad Religion: I Love My Computer How is it nerdy? It's not even about a girl, it really is about loving a computer and how the computer is far better than a real girlfriend. Choice lyrics: I’ve never been quite so happy/all I need to do is click on you/and we’ll be joined/in the most soul-less way/and we’ll never/ever ruin each other’s day Video: Video link 5) The Aquabats: Martian Girl How is it nerdy? It takes all the silly scifi conventions about aliens and turns them into a love song about a green-skinned girl in a silver bikini. Of course, their love was not meant to be because after kissing the narrator and drawing blood with her razor sharp teeth, she flies away. Choice lyrics: She’s not a bird/She’s not a plane/She’s got green blood/Pumping through her veins. Video: Video link 6) Logan Whitehurst: Calculator Love How is it nerdy? Aside from the bizarro chipmunk-sounding vocals, the lyrics revolve around solving math problems together using a brand new calculator. Choice lyrics: If you really love me darling, count it up and see/And we can solve our problems with some trigonometry Video: I couldn't find any videos featuring the song, but if you want to check it out, here's a link to the MP3. 7) Freezepop: Science Genius Girl How is it nerdy? The song is about a girl who's great at science and wants to clone a human being to be both her boyfriend and bandmate. Choice lyrics: Measure out the chemicals/safety goggles on my eyes/turn the bunsen burner on/my creation comes alive Video: Video link 8) Your Favorite Martian: Zombie Love Song How is it nerdy? Geeks love zombies, so what’s more apt than a love song from the zombie’s point of view. Choice lyrics: I knew you’d be surprised. You can bet that I/May not be alive, but I sure as hell ain’t dead inside./What’s with the shotty? I ain’t wishing you harm./You see, I’d try to hold your hand but I’m missing an arm. Video: Video link 9) The Klein Four Group: Finite Simple Group How is it nerdy? It’s all about math and is performed and written by students of  Northwestern University’s Mathematics Department. Choice lyrics: I'm not the smoothest operator in my class/But we're a mirror pair, me and you/So let's apply forgetful functors to the past/And be a finite simple group, a finite simple group/Let's be a finite simple group of order two Video: Video link 10) Mouldy Peaches: Anyone Else But You How is it nerdy? Aside from being the official theme for the movie Juno, the lyrics are decidedly dorky, particularly the line listing off the Contra Code. Choice lyrics: Up up down down left right left right B A start/Just because we use cheats doesn’t mean we’re not smart/I don’t see what anyone can see/in anyone else but you Video: There is no official video for the song, but here's the audio with the lyrics. Video link Have any more to add? Share your favorites in the comments. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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