Neatorama

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• Fake Faxes Help Prisoner Escape from Jail Twice
• Surgical Robot Folds Tiny Paper Airplane
• Statue Removed from French Town for Being Too Well Endowed
• Lace Streetcar
• This Year's Best April Fools' Day Pranks around the Web
• Massive Home Aquarium Can Hold 4,800 Gallons
• If the Editors of Cosmopolitan Produced the Magazine Guns & Ammo
• Lil Devil's Trick of the Day
• Hurrdurr frummm Hurrlesque
• Motion-activated Sprinkler
• Mousetraps: A Symbol of the American Entrepreneurial Spirit
• Monsters Abroad
• Scientists and Their Belly Button Biomes
• Darth Vader's Ice Cream Truck

Fake Faxes Help Prisoner Escape from Jail Twice Posted: 01 Apr 2011 08:15 PM PDT The wife of a prisoner in Spain sent fake but official-looking faxes to the jails in which her husband was being held. Both times, he was released: In December, he was in a cell at Arganda del Rey courthouse awaiting trial when officers got a fax purportedly from a regional court. It was followed by a phone call purportedly from a court official, corroborating the release order. Officers tried to verify the order, but their calls went unanswered. When a second call was received confirming Serna’s release, he was freed to a waiting taxi. Police said Serna used the same trick to escape from Valdemoro jail in October. Link | Photo by Flickr user Collin Anderson used under Creative Commons license

Surgical Robot Folds Tiny Paper Airplane Posted: 01 Apr 2011 05:24 PM PDT (Video Link) Watch Dr. Jim Porter manipulate a da Vinci surgical robot to build a paper airplane about the size of a penny. At the end, he tries to fling it into the air, again, using only the robot’s arms. via Crunch Gear

Statue Removed from French Town for Being Too Well Endowed Posted: 01 Apr 2011 05:14 PM PDT The government of the French town of Neuville-en-Ferrain commissioned a statue of Marianne, a traditional symbol of the French Revolution. After protests by the mayor and other residents, the statue was removed for having a little too much up top: “It was making people gossip,” said one town hall employee. “Remarks were made, during weddings for example.” Mayor Gerard Cordon persuaded councillors to approve 900 euros in this year’s budget to buy a replacement, a more conventional bust of Marianne modelled on the statuesque French model Laetitia Casta. The artist who made the rejected bust, Catherine Lamacque, said she gave it outsized breasts deliberately, “to symbolise the generosity of the Republic.” I suspect that had it been a full nude in the Academic tradition, no one would have noticed. Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: AFP

Lace Streetcar Posted: 01 Apr 2011 03:24 PM PDT Canadian artist Dorie Millerson makes sculptures out of lace, such as this streetcar from Toronto. Another cool series in her portfolio called “attachments” takes old sepia toned family photographs and recreates them in lace. Link via Colossal

This Year's Best April Fools' Day Pranks around the Web Posted: 01 Apr 2011 03:12 PM PDT (Video Link) Today is the most difficult of all days on which to be a Neatorama author because we must attempt to distinguish between the neat real and the neat fake. Confusing hijinks abound on this day, such as the subscription paywall that our friends at Boing Boing instituted (they had me falling for it for about ten seconds). My favorite prank is Google’s new motion-controlled email program, but you can view roundups of some of the best pranks this year at Flavorwire, Technabob, and Urlesque.

Massive Home Aquarium Can Hold 4,800 Gallons Posted: 01 Apr 2011 01:38 PM PDT In the basement of Jack Heathcote five-bedroom home, you can find the largest aquarium in Britain. In measures approximately 13 by 13 by 7 feet and can hold 4,800 gallons when filled to capacity. Heathcote has to clean it by hand (pictured) by diving in with the exotic fish from all of the world that he’s collected: Three of the walls of the tank are the foundation walls of the house and a large section of floor was removed by the bay window to allow access. Downstairs a wall of glass has replaced the brick wall, and behind it are some of the largest fish kept in captivity. And the collection in the tank – which includes some valuable species – consists of two chainsaw doradids, three 2ft long Pacus, some Pangasius, a Red tail hybrid catfish, two alligator gars, eight enormous stingrays and two Fly River turtles. They will soon be joined by two silver arowanas, which are more commonly found in the Amazon River Basin. You can view several large pictures of the aquarium at the link. Link via OhGizmo! | Photo: Page One Previously: Arapaimag’s Monster Home Aquarium

If the Editors of Cosmopolitan Produced the Magazine Guns & Ammo Posted: 01 Apr 2011 01:01 PM PDT It’d probably look something like this. Although agitating a range safety officer (RO) is usually a bad idea. You don’t want to become the that guy at the range. Image by Robb Allen using a photo by Oleg Volk.

Lil Devil's Trick of the Day Posted: 01 Apr 2011 12:22 PM PDT Lil Devil’s Trick of the Day - $10.45 It’s April Fools’ Day! Is your bag of tricks all packed and ready to go? No!!!  Well, don’t get caught with your pants down again!  Get over to the NeatoShop and get the Lil Devil’s Trick of the Day prank set! This beautiful little ensemble will give you a weeks worth of pranks.  You may have missed the holiday, but that doesn’t mean you have to miss all the fun. Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more hilarious Gag Gifts & Pranks!

Hurrdurr frummm Hurrlesque Posted: 01 Apr 2011 10:50 AM PDT Look, something’s wrong with Neatorama! Not to worry, that’s just the Hurrdurr version. You can make any website look like this by going through HURRDURR.IT, new from the folks at Urlesque, which is going by the name Hurrlesque today. Link

Motion-activated Sprinkler Posted: 01 Apr 2011 07:42 AM PDT Even the Wicked Witch is no match for the Scarecrow! Amazon sells the Contech Electronics CRO101 Scarecrow Motion-Activated Sprinkler. The normal purpose of such a device is to scare pets and wildlife (and maybe kids) away from your lawn or garden. However, many folks have their own ideas of how it should be used, as you’ll see in the seven pages of customer-submitted images. Link -via b3ta

Mousetraps: A Symbol of the American Entrepreneurial Spirit Posted: 01 Apr 2011 07:13 AM PDT “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” Sure, it’s an old saw, but it’s also literally true. Between 1838, when the United States Patent Office opened its doors, and 1996, the year that Jack Hope wrote a story about the device for American Heritage magazine, more than 4,400 mousetrap patents were awarded in dozens of different subclasses, including “Electrocuting and Explosive,” “Swinging Striker,” “Choking or Squeezing,” and 36 others. That’s an average of more than two dozen patents every year for more than 150 years. What makes that number more spectacular is that 95 percent of those patents were given to amateur, or first-time inventors. That’s more patents than have been awarded for any other device, according to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), which is currently celebrating the mousetrap by displaying several different designs on the first floor of the museum in one of several long glass cases that greet visitors, both new and returning, when they enter the building. Nicholas Jackson writes in The Atlantic about various mousetrap designs and how they represent the entrepreneurial spirit. Included is a gallery of some of the more interesting mousetrap patents recorded over the years. Link -via Look at This

Monsters Abroad Posted: 01 Apr 2011 06:57 AM PDT Colin Greenhalgh adds monsters and somewhat-poetic captions to vintage postcards to make them much more interesting. Meanwhile in Adventure Land, an imp lands a hand, scaring all the guests. Onlookers are captivated in fear, as he emerges from the murk, and lets lose a terrifying burp. See a variety of such nonsense at his blog Monsters Abroad. Link -Thanks, Amy Dix!

Scientists and Their Belly Button Biomes Posted: 01 Apr 2011 06:43 AM PDT Who has more bacteria in their navel -Carl Zimmer of The Loom or Peter Aldhous of NewScientist? The swabs have been taken, and the cultures were grown. You can see the results in petri dishes. It’s part of the Belly Button Biodiversity Project led by Jiri Hulcr of North Carolina State University. The project was conceived as a device to interest the public in microbiology, and to counter the common view that bacteria are nothing but causes of disease. “This fear is based on a lack of awareness that we live in a microbial world,” says Hulcr, who notes that even some “self-described germophobes” have confronted their anxieties and given swabs. Hulcr also aims to extend a scientific frontier: researchers are realising that the human “microbiome” – the diversity of microorganisms that inhabit our bodies – is a key influence on our health and physiology. The skin remains poorly explored territory, and the belly button is an ideal sampling point because it doesn’t get as scrubbed and sprayed with chemicals as much other, more accessible parts. See more navel microbes growing at NewScientist. Link -via Carl Zimmer

Darth Vader's Ice Cream Truck Posted: 01 Apr 2011 06:38 AM PDT (YouTube link) Imagine an ice cream truck rolling into your neighborhood playing that tune -wouldn’t you run to it as fast as you can? Admiral Snackbar, indeed! This is an advertisement for Star Wars Popsicles, one of many April Fool’s Day items from Think Geek. Link

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