Neatorama

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• Cristina Zenato, Shark Handler
• Scientists of the Internet in Lego
• Cat vs. Piñata
• Casualties of War
• Giant Water Balloon in Slow Motion
• Make Your Own Pancake Art
• A Time-Traveling Fictional Bar Crawl
• Admiral's Map Hat
• Pokémon/Dr. Seuss Mashup Contest
• Jello in a Shattering Christmas Ornament
• Dungeons & Dragons Song: "Roll a D6"
• High Speed Photography and Water Balloons
• Tentacle Tie
• Finally! Real-Life Anime Cat Ears
• Corona Beer Tumbler
• The Cute Side of The Force
• The Rock Band Family Tree
• Pakistani Homemade Machine Gun Market
• Quadcopter Sounds Like a Swarm of Angry Bees
• How Many People Are In Space Right Now?
• The Underwater Project by Mark Tipple
• Gadgets "Aged to Perfection"
• Scientists Create All-Female Species of Lizard
• The Family Corleone: Prequel to The Godfather
• Generating Electricity with Whisky
• Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on the Big Piano
• R.I.P. Claude Choules
• Real Life FarmVille
• What Is It? game 176

Cristina Zenato, Shark Handler Posted: 06 May 2011 04:33 AM PDT (YouTube link) How would you like to do this for a living? Cristina Zenato is a shark handler. Underwater videographer and conservationist Joe Romeiro captures her interacting with sharks in this lovely video.  I found it mesmerizing although I question why anyone would want to balance a shark on their hand. Link – Via Inspiration Green

Scientists of the Internet in Lego Posted: 05 May 2011 09:09 PM PDT Maia Weinstock enshrined your favorite internet scientists, science bloggers, and science journalists in Lego! The project is called Scitweeps, as each person is identified by their Twitter feed. Pictured here is @badastronomer (Dr. Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy Blog). How many do you recognize? See the entire collection in her Flickr set. Link -via Boing Boing

Cat vs. Piñata Posted: 05 May 2011 07:43 PM PDT (YouTube link) In honor of Cinco de Mayo, Charlie disembowels a piñata. For dramatic effect, this piñata was filled with tasty kitty noms. -via The Daily What

Casualties of War Posted: 05 May 2011 07:42 PM PDT The art collective named Dorothy created a series of four “green army men” that reflect the reality of many veterans. The figures represent disability, homelessness, violence, and suicide. The art project, called “Casulaties of War,” is not for sale. Link -via Boing Boing

Giant Water Balloon in Slow Motion Posted: 05 May 2011 07:37 PM PDT (Video Link) The Slow Mo Guys, Gav and Dan, acquired and filled a water balloon six feet across. They then jumped on it, trying to break it. It was quite a sturdy balloon, and the ripples that result from the impacts are neato-looking — like CGI. The action starts at 1:45 and the balloon ruptures at 4:15. via Doobybrain

Make Your Own Pancake Art Posted: 05 May 2011 06:49 PM PDT Photo Link Looking for a little extra oomph to the traditional Mother’s Day breakfast in bed this weekend? Give pancake art a whirl. With a squeeze bottle and a little practice, you can produce some results that are pretty sweet (with or without syrup). Link (and good directions here) via More Design Please

A Time-Traveling Fictional Bar Crawl Posted: 05 May 2011 06:26 PM PDT When the What first caught my eye because of a Flavorwire link to their TGIF timeline. You know, if you were of a certain age, there was a point when you were totally stoked for Friday nights because it meant Full House, Family Matters and Perfect Strangers. But then I started perusing and loved the Time-Traveling Fictional Bar Crawl even more. I’m impressed that “The Ink and Paint Club” from Who Framed Roger Rabbit was included. Link via Flavorwire

Admiral's Map Hat Posted: 05 May 2011 06:05 PM PDT deviantART user Samuel Lee made this dandy leather hat and decorated it with a classic maritime motif. It’s not a treasure map. At least, Lee doesn’t say that it’s a treasure map. Maybe there’s a code worked into it somehow…. Link via Boing Boing

Pokémon/Dr. Seuss Mashup Contest Posted: 05 May 2011 06:00 PM PDT The cartoon blog Draw 2D2, I gather, offers a regular stream of mashups between different pairs of pop culture icons. Most recently, the artists there tackled Pokémon and Dr. Seuss. Jason Welborn added a few lines of Seussian poetry to his contribution. Link via Popped Culture

Jello in a Shattering Christmas Ornament Posted: 05 May 2011 05:52 PM PDT Photographer Alain Sailer breaks stuff and takes pictures. Well, that’s probably oversimplifying it a bit. The results of his high speed photography are really gorgeous, so check out his Flickr photostream. Link via Dude Craft

Dungeons & Dragons Song: "Roll a D6" Posted: 05 May 2011 05:46 PM PDT (Video Link) Connor Anderson and Zac Smith made this outstanding parody of Far East Movement’s “Like a G6.” Truly, contrary to the airy video of Far East Moment, this is how the good life is lived: in a basement, all night, with candles and Coke. via Nerd Bastards | Previously: Song about the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual

High Speed Photography and Water Balloons Posted: 05 May 2011 05:22 PM PDT Photographer Ryan Taylor uses water balloons and strobe lights to create some amazing pieces of high speed photography. This lovely image was made with skim milk and food coloring. Link via This Is Colossal

Tentacle Tie Posted: 05 May 2011 05:17 PM PDT Etsy seller Rebecca Roka offers this squidscot covered with 29 sucker cups. Her shop includes a “Tentacle section.” Now there’s a retailing novelty! Not even the largest Wal-Mart has a tentacle section. Link via Nerdcore

Finally! Real-Life Anime Cat Ears Posted: 05 May 2011 05:00 PM PDT (Video Link) Anime cat ear headbands have been around for a long time. But these, developed by Neurowear, can be controlled with your thoughts. At least, that’s the bold claim that the company makes about the “Necomimi”. Just concentrate to make them stand up. Link via CrunchGear

Corona Beer Tumbler Posted: 05 May 2011 10:41 AM PDT Corona Beer Tumbler – $6.95 It’s Cinco De Mayo!  Celebrate in style with the Corona Beer Tumbler from the NeatoShop. This fabulous little glass was created by a California artisan and is made from an upcycled beer bottle. Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fabulous Glassware & Drinkware!

The Cute Side of The Force Posted: 05 May 2011 10:34 AM PDT These little, cute crocheted Star Wars characters really make you say awww-some. They have no other purpose than to perhaps be the perfect gift for your buddy who loves Star wars and arts and crafts. Link

The Rock Band Family Tree Posted: 05 May 2011 10:32 AM PDT It's hard to believe but some musicians out there are in more bands than Jack White. BandToBand.com has created a unique web site to "map the Rock and Roll Genome." It's like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, but with Slash and Dave Grohl. Bands have a tendency to share band members from time to time and as a result it is not difficult to construct a simple “family tree” based upon the interrelationship of band members. We at BandToBand.com decided to find out how large this extended tree is. Every band in our list is connected to every other band based upon this family tree principle. Link

Pakistani Homemade Machine Gun Market Posted: 05 May 2011 10:31 AM PDT From the folks at Vice Magazine comes this mini documentary on the Pakistani Homemade Machine gun market. It gives an in depth look (with photos and video) of how arms are created, bought and sold in that part of the world. The bulk of Pakistan's homemade automatic weapons and explosive devices are forged, built and sold at Darra Adamkhel, a village located near Peshawar where main street is an open-air arms market. Link

Quadcopter Sounds Like a Swarm of Angry Bees Posted: 05 May 2011 10:30 AM PDT A fun build-it-yourself project is to create this "Crazyflie" a homemade miniature Quadcopter that uses a Printed Circuit Board (PCB). The video  at the link shows the tiny flying machine zipping around effortlessly. Despite its tinyness, the quadcopter includes a charging port, radio, 3-axis accelerometer, two gyroscopes, and a lightweight 110 mAh LiPO battery that gives it about four and a half minutes of flying time Link

How Many People Are In Space Right Now? Posted: 05 May 2011 10:28 AM PDT I like websites that perform one function well. This website answers the question of how many people are in space at any given moment and where (on the International Space Station, aboard the Space Shuttle, etc.)  Link

The Underwater Project by Mark Tipple Posted: 05 May 2011 10:24 AM PDT Photo: Mark Tipple Photographer and surfer Mark Tipple has always been intrigued with what happens below the surface. So, while between projects he "hung out" under the sea to capture some of the best underwater photographs you’ll see today: "Coming from a surfing background I used to wonder what happens when we’re duck-diving, like, what it looks like from a different angle than what we can see. Kinda hard to explain but it has always been on my mind. I used to surf with a small video camera and housing attached to my helmet, (pauses) it worked surprisingly well but my neck couldn’t take the impact and stress while trying to duck-dive and capture the right angle. Even tried to turn it back on myself to see what happens clearer but that, uh, sucked (laughs). I looked for a new approach to capture what I was seeking, which basically meant getting off the surfboard." Link – via The Telegraph

Gadgets "Aged to Perfection" Posted: 05 May 2011 10:15 AM PDT Used and banged up gadgets are usually considered as ugly by most people, but not to Remy Labesque of design mind’s Object Oriented blog. He considers them "Aged to Perfection" (though that’s not enough to consign the gadgets to the trash heap of obsolescence – or e-waste recycling, after he took the photos): The truth is that consumer products are ‘new’ for a very brief moment when they are first removed from the packaging, but spend the great majority of their useful lives as ‘used’ products in the process of decay. Many welcome the breaking-in of products like a leather wallet or a pair of jeans as this wear can be aesthetically-pleasing. The Japanese have a term for this, “Wabi-sabi”. Wabi-sabi can be used to describe the aesthetically pleasing wear of an object as it decays over time. It’s a notion that embraces the transience of objects and celebrates the purity of the imperfect. Aging with dignity is a criteria designers should recognize in their efforts. I’m thinking of a future when products are designed not for the brief moment when they are new, but for when they have been aged to perfection. Link – via Core 77

Scientists Create All-Female Species of Lizard Posted: 05 May 2011 10:14 AM PDT Who needs males when you have parthenogenesis? With a little help from science, biologist Peter Baumann and collagues have created an all-female lizard species: Researchers have bred a new species of all-female lizard, mimicking a process that has happened naturally in the past but has never been directly observed. “It’s recreating the events that lead to new species,” said cell biologist Peter Baumann of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, whose new species is described May 3 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “It relates to the question of how these unisexual species arise in the first place.” Link

The Family Corleone: Prequel to The Godfather Posted: 05 May 2011 10:09 AM PDT Someone has made Ed Falco an offer he can’t refuse. The novelist was authorized by the family of the late Mario Puzo to create a prequel to The Godfather, a novel titled "The Family Corleone": Mario Puzo’s bestselling mafia novel, "The Godfather," will get a prequel, it was announced Wednesday. Publisher Grand Central says "The Family Corleone" will come to shelves in June 2012. "The Family Corleone," an "all-new prequel," will be based on an unproduced screenplay written by Puzo. The 78-year-old Puzo died of a heart attack in 1999. Assigned to bring Puzo’s original characters to early life was Ed Falco, a novelist, short-story writer and playwright who runs the creative writing program at Virginia Tech. Falco is an interesting choice for a number of reasons: He grew up Catholic in Brooklyn; his writing has dealt with violence; the Virginia Tech shooter, who killed 32 people in 2007, was one of his students. And on the more frivolous side, he is the uncle of actress Edie Falco, who starred in the modern-day mafia hit "The Sopranos." Link

Generating Electricity with Whisky Posted: 05 May 2011 10:08 AM PDT Photo: Murdo Macleod Whisky. Is there anything it can’t do? Here’s what the Scots are going to do with the byproducts of whisky-making process: It is the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, and now whisky is to be used to create electricity for homes in a new bioenergy venture involving some of Scotland’s best-known distilleries. Contracts have recently been awarded for the construction of a biomass combined heat and power plant at Rothes in Speyside that by 2013 will use the by-products of the whisky-making process for energy production. Vast amounts of "draff", the spent grains used in the distilling process, and pot ale, a residue from the copper stills, are produced by the whisky industry each year and are usually transported off-site. The Rothes project, a joint venture between Helius Energy and the Combination of Rothes Distillers (CoRD) will burn the draff with woodchips to generate enough electricity to supply 9,000 homes. It will be supplied by Aalborg Energie Technick, a danish engineering company. The pot ale will be made into a concentrated organic fertiliser and an animal feed for use by local farmers. Sure gives a new spin on "drunk with power," doesn’t it? Link via GOOD

Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on the Big Piano Posted: 05 May 2011 10:07 AM PDT If you love Tom Hanks playing Chopsticks on the giant piano in Big, you’ll love this: two FAO Schwartz staffers in New York City playing Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]

R.I.P. Claude Choules Posted: 05 May 2011 08:14 AM PDT Claude Stanley Choules died today at a nursing home in Perth, Australia, at the age of 110. Choules was the last known combat veteran of World War I. World War I was raging when Choules began training with the British Royal Navy, just one month after he turned 14. In 1917, he joined the battleship HMS Revenge, from which he watched the 1918 surrender of the German High Seas Fleet, the main battle fleet of the German Navy during the war. “There was no sign of fight left in the Germans as they came out of the mist at about 10 a.m.,” Choules wrote in his autobiography. The German flag, he recalled, was hauled down at sunset. “So ended the most momentous day in the annals of naval warfare,” he wrote. “A fleet of ships surrendered without firing a shot.” Millions died in the war, which lasted from 1914-1918. Choules and another Briton, Florence Green, became the war’s last known surviving service members after the death of American Frank Buckles in February, according to the Order of the First World War, a U.S.-based group that tracks veterans. Choules’ autobiography is entitled The Last of the Last. Link -via reddit (Image credit: LSIS Nadia Monteith,AP Photo/Royal Australian Navy)

Real Life FarmVille Posted: 05 May 2011 06:53 AM PDT Many of my Facebook friends are virtual farmers on FarmVille but I wonder how many of them would choose to run a real agricultural operation. The MyFarm project offers 10,000 subscribers the opportunity to participate in the running of a real-life working farm in Cambridgeshire, U.K. for £30 per year. The Wimpole Estate, owned by England’s National Trust, currently receives 250,000 visitors per year and has a rich farming history going back centuries.  Farmer subscribers will vote on how the farm is run and get to choose crops, livestock, facilities investments, and machinery. It is hoped that the project will raise awareness about how agriculture works. Link – Via Good

What Is It? game 176 Posted: 05 May 2011 06:04 AM PDT It is once again time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Do you know what this thing is? Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you’d like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop. Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don’t include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirts, Funny T-Shirts and Artist-Designed T-Shirts? There’s more objects to guess posted at the What Is It? Blog. Take a deep breath, do your best, and good luck!

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