Neatorama

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• New and Improved ASIMO Robot
• An Embroidered Cake
• 20 Great Photos Of The World's Most Fashionable Kitty
• The Religion of Batman Via Twitter
• The Legend of Zelda Rap
• The World's First Non-Alcoholic Whiskey
• Matrix Surfing
• Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, and Other Movies That Should Me Made
• Dog Can Do a Walking Handstand While Peeing
• Can "Opt-Out" Organ Donation Law be the Solution?
• The Dragon at the Gates
• This Painting Was Made without a Paintbrush
• Mobile Tail for Your Smartphone
• Battlestar Galactica Cross Stitch
• Reporter Wins Award for Undergoing Circumcision with Bamboo Twigs in Order to Write a Story
• Closing a Tailgate with a Motorcycle
• Wind Painting by Bob Verschueren
• Australia Issues Superhero License Plates
• How The Joker Became The Clown Prince Of Crime
• Psychedelic Interpretations Of Cartoon Characters
• Redesigned Girl Scout Merit Badges
• Wacky New Boy Scout Ads
• 6 Most Badass Self-Inflicted Medical Experiments
• The Technology of Pointe Shoes
• We're Now on Google+ Pages!
• Super Wedding
• The Duggars are Expecting #20
• Leg Hair Font
• Pack of Dogs Attack Cat
• #1 Chef Oven Mitt
• A Penny’s Not Going to Kill You

New and Improved ASIMO Robot Posted: 09 Nov 2011 12:17 AM PST (Video link) A brand new version of ASIMO – Honda’s humanoid robot, which has been in development for over 10 years now – was recently demonstrated. The new model can jump on one leg, pour drinks and much more. Via Reddit

An Embroidered Cake Posted: 08 Nov 2011 11:55 PM PST Don’t worry, it’s not actually embroidered -that wouldn’t be very delicious after all. Instead, it just looks embroidered thanks to a careful use of sprinkles. The creator even used a real embroidery design as her guide. Link Via Craftzine

20 Great Photos Of The World's Most Fashionable Kitty Posted: 08 Nov 2011 11:45 PM PST Have you met Luna the Fashion Kitty yet? She is indeed the most stylish kitten around, with a full wardrobe of clothing, and BuzzFeed’s collection of photos of her is simply irresistible. Link

The Religion of Batman Via Twitter Posted: 08 Nov 2011 11:41 PM PST TheBookofBatman tells the tale of The Dark Knight in the style of the bible, showing just how much of a savior Batman is to Gotham City. Finally the religion of comic book nerds has gotten the formality it deserves. Link Via BuzzFeed

The Legend of Zelda Rap Posted: 08 Nov 2011 11:36 PM PST (Video Link) I don’t know about you guys, but I had no idea that Link was so G. Via BuzzFeed

The World's First Non-Alcoholic Whiskey Posted: 08 Nov 2011 11:34 PM PST You know what you never hear people say? “I really love the taste of whiskey, but I sure wish it didn’t get me drunk.” Yet, from the annals of incredibly stupid ideas comes ArKay, the O’Douls of whiskey. Link Via Geekosystem

Matrix Surfing Posted: 08 Nov 2011 11:09 PM PST A couple of sufring videos captured using bullet time – the popular special and visual effect that got well known through the Matrix movies. (Video link) Rip Curl has again created a technological world-first by capturing full-tilt surfing action using a “30 camera Array” — a line of cameras firing consistently as surfers ride towards and past it. The results are unique “frozen moments of time” – that can be viewed in a combination of angles for a true in the round perspective. (Video link) There’s also a behind the scenes clip available. Via Winextra.

Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, and Other Movies That Should Me Made Posted: 08 Nov 2011 08:29 PM PST Image via American Film Market Dear Hollywood, stop making nitwitted remakes and hop on this obvious winner. When are you starting production? Tomorrow? Good. Well, if only making movies is that easy (on the other hand, any process that greenlighted Gigli can't possibly be that rigorous, right?). While we wait for Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies to hit the Big Screen, feast your eyes on these 19 Insane Posters for Movies That May Never Exist, over at Wired's Underwire blog: Extending the B-movie legacy of insane posters and catchy titles, legendary showman Roger Corman and other independent producers unleash a fresh barrage of eye-popping genre hype this week at the American Film Market. Great movie posters play a key role at the annual movie marketing event in Santa Monica, California, because sci-fi filmmakers often rely on these “sell sheets” to attract production money and distribution deals even before their movies go into production. Link See also NeatoShop's Zombie Shop for more Zombie goodness.

Dog Can Do a Walking Handstand While Peeing Posted: 08 Nov 2011 08:03 PM PST (Video Link) Another appalling double standard. When Oscar the dog walks around on his front paws while peeing, it’s cute. When I do it, people call the cops. -via Geekosystem

Can "Opt-Out" Organ Donation Law be the Solution? Posted: 08 Nov 2011 06:28 PM PST The problem with organ transplantation is, of course, there's not enough donors to go around (Maybe people think that they'd need that kidney in the afterlife or something). But could this be the solution: a proposed Welsh law where organ donation is the default and people have to "opt out" if they don't want their organs be transplanted. If it goes ahead, Wales would be the UK's first country with the system. [Health Minister Lesley Griffiths] said the lack of organs and tissues caused unnecessary deaths and suffering. The law, planned to be in place by 2015, would require people to opt out of donating their organs when they die, rather than opting in by signing the register. Doctors' leaders hope it will "change cultural expectations" and prompt more family discussions about donation. It's a "soft opt-out," meaning that families would not be forced to give up their dead relatives' organs: Link

The Dragon at the Gates Posted: 08 Nov 2011 05:37 PM PST It would be the ultimate LARPing setting, but I don’t know if it’s been used for that. Harlech House in Dublin, Ireland is a fanciful mansion that includes an underground passage, a secret garden, a ship’s prow, and artwork everywhere inspired by fairy tales. It’s topped off with this ominous warning to unwelcome visitors. Link -via reddit | Photo: myhome.ie

This Painting Was Made without a Paintbrush Posted: 08 Nov 2011 05:17 PM PST Not one. Amy Shackleton applies wet paint to a canvas and then elevates and turns it so that the paint runs in the direction that she wants. After many carefully staged pourings over one or two weeks, she’s made a complete, coherent image. Her technique seems to work particularly well for nighttime scenes. You can view more images and a time-lapse video of Shackleton at work at the link. Link | Artist’s Website

Mobile Tail for Your Smartphone Posted: 08 Nov 2011 04:28 PM PST Well, you do fondle your iPhone like it's a pet, so why not give it a tail already? Behold "Mobile Tail" by Korean designers Jangwon Park and Sangwoo Park, which won an award at the Tokyo Designers Week 2011: As Jangwon puts it, in today's busy society, we have constantly have our phones by our side—whatever happened to spending time with pets? The concept behind Mobile Tail is to give our phones a personality, to add a tail to both personalize, and give a sense of heart to our "constant companion." Link

Battlestar Galactica Cross Stitch Posted: 08 Nov 2011 03:58 PM PST The sampler was created by man. There are no copies. It does not have a plan. No one should feel obligated to join this crafting project in any way. This is a design decision I have made for myself. If it turns out that there are not enough personnel to complete a cross stitch, I will make a crocheted cozy with anyone who is willing to join me. Photo: Steotch

Reporter Wins Award for Undergoing Circumcision with Bamboo Twigs in Order to Write a Story Posted: 08 Nov 2011 03:42 PM PST Simon Eroro, an Australian journalist, really wanted to talk a group of rebels in Papua New Guinea. He crossed many miles of wild, dangerous territory to find them, only to be told that he must be circumcised to meet with them. And they do circumcision the old fashioned way. No, not a scalpel. Not even a knife. Slivers of bamboo. In recognition of the extreme efforts that he went to to get the story, Eroro won a local journalism award: In his subsequent reporting for the Post-Courier newspaper, Mr Eroro exposed the cross-border movements of Free West Papua militants from Indonesia into Papua New Guinea. The judges of News Ltd’s Scoop of the Year prize said the reports had led to a major police operation to tighten the borders. “The impact of Simon’s scoop was enormous; the police commissioner launched a major operation to tighten the borders and close down the [Free West Papua] refugee camps,” the judges said. Link -via Dave Barry | Photo: Flickr user CIFOR

Closing a Tailgate with a Motorcycle Posted: 08 Nov 2011 03:26 PM PST (Video Link) You don’t need hands. All you need to close the tailgate of a truck is a motorcycle, as stunt rider EndoJoe demonstrates. -via Blame It on the Voices

Wind Painting by Bob Verschueren Posted: 08 Nov 2011 02:27 PM PST In 1978, self-taught artist Bob Verschueren created beautiful Wind Paintings by laying down pigments like crushed charcoal and rust on the ground and letting the wind do the "painting." Among his most ground breaking works are the Wind Paintings from the 1970s and 1980s which involved painting the landscape of empty and desolate places with the help of wind. He “painted” these canvasses with crushed charcoal, iron oxide, chalk, terra verte, flour, yellow ochre, terre de Cassel, burnt and natural umber. Each time, after a specific material was laid out in a linear motif on the land, Verschueren would wait for the wind, a hand that sublimates the art to the materials to distribute the variously coloured pigments and materials over the land. The resulting works usually only last a few hours, whereupon the wind that created them likewise blows them away. I Love Belgium blog has the pics: Link - via Design*Sponge

Australia Issues Superhero License Plates Posted: 08 Nov 2011 02:13 PM PST Apparently Australians love their comic books so much that they’ve decided to start issuing license plates with images of DC superheroes, like Superman and Batman, printed on them. This means that the Australian motor vehicle department is officially the coolest on the planet! When are we going to get license plates that prominently display our geek love? Link

How The Joker Became The Clown Prince Of Crime Posted: 08 Nov 2011 02:11 PM PST In my opinion, the Joker is the ultimate comic book villain. From the beginning he has been one badass dude, killing with laughter in a time when comic book deaths were few and far between. He is the ultimate nemesis, a criminal so chaotic, so insane, that Batman’s logical mind simply cannot keep up. The Joker has seen his character remodeled over the years, but not as much as many of the other comic book heroes and villains that get facelifts, proving that the Joker’s creators more or less had it right the first time. ComicsAlliance has an interesting and insightful article detailing the history of the clown prince of crime, read on if you want to see just how far the Joker has come over the years. Link

Psychedelic Interpretations Of Cartoon Characters Posted: 08 Nov 2011 01:30 PM PST These freaky paintings look like what you’ll see if you watch cartoons while on acid. Created by Tina Lugo, they have a pop art flavor coupled with psychedelic melting madness, and yet the cartoon characters that star in these paintings are still recognizable. Tina creates these bizarre pieces by painting enamel on sheets of Plexiglass, which enhances the vibrancy of the colors and gives them their cartoon cel look. Personally, I would love to see Hanna Barbera characters melt together in her future works! Link –via BuzzFeed

Redesigned Girl Scout Merit Badges Posted: 08 Nov 2011 12:25 PM PST The times they are a-changin' and changin' with the times are the Girl Scouts. First, they let boys in, and then this: redesigned merit badges that are more relevant to today's modern world. Beth Teitell of The Boston Globe explains: Ruth Bramson, the chief executive of Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts, wants to make one thing clear. “We’ll never give up the cookie badge.’’ But as Girl Scouts of the USA prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary, the organization has revamped its badge lineup, and some - Looking Your Best, and From Fitness to Fashion, among them - have gotten the ax. Others, such as the cookie badge, made the cut, albeit with makeovers. And some of the 136 badges sound more like topics trending on Twitter than something a fresh-faced girl would pin on her sash. There’s a Good Credit badge and a Money Manager badge, Locavore, Website Designer, and Netiquette badges, a Science of Happiness badge, and, as a component of a cookie-badge program that has been expanded, a Customer Loyalty badge. At a time when girls have many extracurricular options, the wide-ranging revamp - the first in 25 years - is an attempt to stay relevant. Just don't ever redesign the Girls Cout cookies, mmkay? Link See also: 10 Unexpected Merit Badges

Wacky New Boy Scout Ads Posted: 08 Nov 2011 12:21 PM PST The Boy Scouts Of America are looking to recruit the future Ron Swanson’s of the world, but you don’t need a beard to join, you just need the desire to “be one with the wild” (their campaign slogan). Only time will tell whether their ads, featuring kids with epic beards, will increase their numbers or scare the wits out of potential recruits! Link

6 Most Badass Self-Inflicted Medical Experiments Posted: 08 Nov 2011 12:09 PM PST Scientists sometimes have an experiment in mind that would be unethical, or more likely too dangerous, to ask volunteers to submit to. If the scientist wants to know the answer badly enough, he (these six are all men) may just use himself as the experimental subject, no matter what the danger. You’d have to be pretty curious to inject yourself with a deadly disease like cholera. Pettenkofer was a late 19th century medical researcher and public health advocate who developed the very first large-scale pure-water system in Munich, Germany. And even though that’s probably very impressive, from now until the day you die, if you remember anything about Pettenkofer, it will be this: Max Josef von Pettenkofer drank a steaming cup of cholera bacteria that he cultured from a patient’s diarrhea bombs. Yeah, he got sick. But he didn’t get sick enough to die, and Pettenkofer considered that proof of his theory that the cholera bacterium needed a victim who practiced poor sanitation. Of course, one could argue that without poor sanitation, the bacterium wouldn’t be spread, outside of scientists who ingested it on purpose. Anyway, read about Pettenkofer and five other scientists at Cracked. Link

The Technology of Pointe Shoes Posted: 08 Nov 2011 12:05 PM PST Seeing a ballerina en pointe is impressive, but not as impressive as it was 200 years ago. Competition among dancers means that everyone trains for dancing on the toes, and the quality of the shoes means that all dancers en pointe look the same. Whitney Laemmli of the University of Pennsylvania says the standardization of slippers was a deliberate method of standardizing ballerinas. George Balanchine, the charismatic director who ran the New York City Ballet and its School of American Ballet, rethought pointe shoes. He worked with Salvatore Capezio to develop and patent pointe shoes to produced the exact lines of the foot and leg he thought beautiful, and to be quieter and less clunky than earlier pointe shoes. He required all dancers (not just the principals) to go on pointe — and not for a few short moments, but for hours at a time. Laemmli argues that the new shoes forced dancers’ bodies to move in new ways. Dancers on this pointe regimen developed characteristically long, lean leg muscles. Balanchine also encouraged dancers to let the shoes remake their bodies, including developing bunions that gave the foot just the right line. And as their bodies were remade, dancers became “like IBM machines,” modern and indistinguishable. Link -via Boing Boing (Image credit: Flickr user kirikiri)

We're Now on Google+ Pages! Posted: 08 Nov 2011 10:01 AM PST Hey neatoramanauts! We’re really excited to be up and running already on the brand new Google + pages! Start following us there for exclusive content, contests, and more! Just click here and put us in your circle! First 100 to do so get bragging rights! We’ll pick one lucky winner and send you a t-shirt from our store – your choice – on us, for adding us!

Super Wedding Posted: 08 Nov 2011 09:46 AM PST Jessica and Jonathan Carroll tied the knot in true super hero style, although DC comics might be surprised to see Superman marrying villain Harley Quinn, as the two appeared at the nuptials. Read all about it and see more wedding photos at Geeks Are Sexy. Link

The Duggars are Expecting #20 Posted: 08 Nov 2011 08:40 AM PST Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, famous for their large family, are expecting another child. This one will be their 20th. The family is the subject of the TLC series currently titled 19 Kids and Counting, which will presumably change when the new one arrives in April. The Tontitown, Ark., couple, who are parents to children Joshua, 23 (who is married to Anna, 23 and has two children, Mackynzie, 2 and Michael, 4 months), twins Jana and John-David, 21; Jill, 20; Jessa, 19; Jinger, 17; Joseph, 16; Josiah, 15; Joy-Anna, 14; twins Jedidiah and Jeremiah, 12; Jason, 11; James, 10; Justin, 8; Jackson, 7; Johanna, 6; Jennifer, 4; and Jordyn, 3, weathered the medical emergency of their youngest daughter, Josie’s birth on Dec. 10, 2009. Link (with video) -via Buzzfeed Previously: #17, #18, and #19

Leg Hair Font Posted: 08 Nov 2011 07:35 AM PST A student at Tama Art University in Japan named Mayuko created a western font composed of leg hair (presumably not her own). It’s not the easiest to read, but may well go down in typographical records as the strangest -at least the strangest font to actually be used commercially! Shown here is a Adidas ad using the leg hair font. Link -via Smart Stop

Pack of Dogs Attack Cat Posted: 08 Nov 2011 07:33 AM PST (YouTube link) Mama can teach her puppies to chase cats, but she hasn’t taught them what to do when they catch one! Russian YouTube user ignoramusky strikes again, adding just the right music to change the mood of an everyday video. -via Arbroath

#1 Chef Oven Mitt Posted: 08 Nov 2011 06:43 AM PST #1 Chef Oven Mitt- $9.95 Thanksgiving is almost here. Are you looking for a way to inspire greatness from your home chef? You need the #1 Chef Oven Mitt from the NeatoShop. Nothing says I believe you can cook a giant turkey like a neoprene oven mitt shaped like a foam finger. Go Chef! Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fun Kitchen Stuff. Link

A Penny’s Not Going to Kill You Posted: 08 Nov 2011 05:07 AM PST by Ernest Ersatz, Improbable Research staff Although people say that "a penny's not going to kill you," that's not strictly true. Sometimes a penny will kill you. There are several cases on record where ingesting a penny has killed a child,1 but, this report deals only with adult misadventures. Children have respect for pennies. Too often, adults do not. Yen and A Quarter Pennies are not uniquely a source of danger. There are two notable and curious cases,2,3 which I will not go into here except briefly, of other kinds of coins being involved with death. Sectional view of the nose, mouth, pharynx, etc. A 50-yen coin and/or a 100-yen coin can kill you, as researchers at Osaka University Medical School handled discovered. As they describe it: A 28-year-old male was found dead on a bed in a hotel. He had two electric wires, the ends of which were fastened to each coin (50 and 100 yen); the coins were attached to a left hypochondrial region and a left side of the chest. The other ends of the wires were connected to a time switch, which had been connected to a plug top (100 V, 60 Hz alternating current)…. The cause of death was thus judged to be suicidal electrocution. It seems that suicide was influenced by a "Manual Book of Suicide," which was found in his bag. However, it appears that a quarter cannot kill you, at least not if you are already dead. Investigators at the Los Angeles County Coroner's Department made that discovery, which they describe thusly: A 69-year-old Chinese woman… was found at autopsy to have a quarter in her air passages. Inquiry showed that her family had placed the coin in her mouth at the time of death according to traditional Chinese funeral practices. This practice is apparently not widely known among forensic pathologists. Other than these two cases, however, the scope of the current investigation is limited to pennies. Penny Potency Although I was not able to find a case in which a single penny killed an adult human being, adult death-by-single-penny is not a far-fetched theoretical abstraction. Far from it. The evidence below, coupled with the additional evidence I alluded to in the previous paragraph (see especially footnote 1, referenced in the first sentence of that paragraph, which is the second paragraph of this report) suggests that it could easily, or fairly easily happen, and perhaps already has happened or is about to happen. Maybe it has just happened, but so very recently that there has not been time for me to persuade the editors that they should re-compose this page to include the information, thus publishing a report that is truly up to date rather than almost up to date. There is no controversy as to whether several pennies, together, can do you in. Pennies in quantity unquestionably can be instruments of death. Let's look at the medical record. Twenty Pennies Can Do It Vertical section of the larynx and upper part of the trachea. Twenty pennies can kill you, if you are a hyena. Investigators at the Detroit Zoological Institute explain how they discovered this fact: An 11-yr-old captive-born female striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) acutely developed lameness and swelling of the left front foot with anorexia, depression, and lethargy. Hematologic evaluation revealed regenerative anemia, azotemia, and other mild serum electrolyte and mineral abnormalities. Twenty radiographically visible coins and 10 coin fragments were removed by laparotomy and gastrotomy following unsuccessful medical therapy. The animal died during anesthetic recovery…. The case highlights the risk posed by penny ingestion for subsequent zinc toxicosis in captive omnivores.4 Twenty Times Twenty Can Four hundred sixty-one pennies can kill you. Investigators at the Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center claim credit for the discovery. In their words: This is the first reported case of human fatality associated with zinc intoxication following a massive ingestion of coins. Four hundred and sixty-one coins were removed from the gastrointestinal tract of a schizophrenic patient during the course of hospitalization. Many of the post-1981 pennies, which consist primarily of zinc, showed severe corrosion due to their prolonged contact with acidic gastric juice. The patient presented with clinical manifestations consistent with the local corrosive as well as systemic effects of zinc intoxication and died 40 days after admission with multi-system organ failure.5 Discussion My preliminary research indicates that most coin-related deaths in adults—at least most of the deaths reported in the official medical literature—involve American coins, and most of those coins are pennies. What of other coins? Many nations have coins that cause medical problems. My report about deaths due to those coins will be reported in a series of separate publications. This report, as I have stated several times, deals mostly with pennies. It may be true that American coins smaller or larger than a penny are seldom involved directly in causing death. One cannot rule out the possibility, though, that people are more careful in how they use these other coins, because each coin is worth more than a humble penny. That is mere speculation, though. Based only on the available evidence, one must conclude that while a penny can do you in, a dime's not going to kill you. References 1. See, for example, "Esophagoaortic Perforation by Foreign Body (Coin) Causing Sudden Death in a 3-Year-Old Child," M. Dahiya and J.S. Denton, American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, vol. 20, no. 2, June 1999, pp. 184–8. 2. For the full report, see "A Suicidal Case of Electrocution With Hypnotic Drug Poisoning: An Autopsy Report" [article in Japanese], M Yamazaki, M Terada et al., Nippon Hoigaku Zasshi [Japanese Journal of Legal Medicine], vol. 52, no. 2, April 1997, pp. 95–101. 3.For the full report, see "A Coin in the Airway," C. Rogers, B. Chang, and R. Shibuya, American Journal of Forensic Medical Pathology, vol. 15, no. 1, March 1994, pp. 91–2. 4. "Zinc Toxicosis in a Captive Striped Hyena (Hyaena hyaena)," D.W. Agnew, R.B. Barbiers, et al., Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine, vol. 30, no. 3, September 1999, pp. 431–4. 5. "Zinc Toxicity Following Massive Coin Ingestion," D.R. Bennett, et al., The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, vol. 18, no. 2, June 1997, pp. 148–53. _____________________ This article is republished with permission from the May-June 2008 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift! Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.

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