Neatorama

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• Let’s Have a Shatnerpalooza!
• Architect Proposes Building 30-Story Skyscraper Out Of Wood
• Smithsonian Showcases The Art Of Video Games
• Gag Me With A Toon Art Exhibition
• Thomas Kuebler-Sculptor Of The Bizarre
• Bollywood Version Of Assassin’s Creed
• Deviled Eggs Plate
• Universal Construction Kit Is A Building Toy Dream Come True
• The Itchy And Scratchy Supercut
• Darth Knight Custom Action Figure Is All Kinds Of Awesome
• Mad Men: the Game
• This Way Up
• Seeing Around the Corner, Physics Style!
• How Steve Jobs Promoted Collaboration and Creativity by Forcing Everyone to Share Restrooms
• The Nanny One Percent
• Would You Reveal Your Facebook Password to get a Job?
• Mysterious Underground Booms in Wisconsin
• My Little Night Owl Bathrobe (Pink)
• Public Bus vs. School Bus
• Well-dressed Firefighters
• A Past Look at the Future
• Firefighter Helmet Cam
• The Tutu Project
• The Pendulum
• Rolls Royce Hearse
• There’s a Phone Ringing in Your Tattoo!
• Garden Carrot (Cake)
• The Titanic Today
• Soda Water Dogs
• It’s Good to Be a YAVIS
• The Rectangular Galaxy

Let’s Have a Shatnerpalooza! Posted: 22 Mar 2012 05:04 AM PDT Whether you love Star Trek, T.J. Hooker, Comedy Central's Roasts or have just happened to watch any program over the last decade that was interrupted with a Priceline commercial, chances are, you just can't get away from William Alan Shatner. In honor of one of the entertainment industry's most pervasive characters let's celebrate one of the world's greatest over-actor's 81st birthday with some fun facts about his successes (and failures). And don’t forget, March 22 is also Talk. Like. Shatner. Day. in honor of his birthday! Image Via Jerry Avenaim [Wikipedia] Fame Came Easy to the Budding Actor You may have already heard, but William Shatner was actually trained as a classical Shakespearean actor and even started his acting career at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada, playing in a variety of classic plays. His first movie role was in 1951, in the Canadian film The Butler's Night Off and in 1954 he was cast as Ranger Bob on The Canadian Howdy Doody Show. Only two years later, he made his debut on Broadway. In another two years, he was cast in his first Hollywood film in 1958's The Brothers Karamazov where he played the youngest of the Karamazov brothers alongside Yul Brynner. He was cast to star in his first TV show only a year later, but CBS canned the show after shooting the pilot and a few episodes. In 1961, he starred in another Broadway play, this time alongside Walter Matthau and Julie Harris. While Shatner was considered a talented actor and was gaining quite a bit of popularity, he was more focused on getting work than getting good roles and his willingness to take any role likely held back his career. Even so, he forged on with the motto "work equals work," a slogan he seems to stay true to in modern times. Through the early sixties, he starred in a number of forgettable and non-descript TV and movie roles, including a Roger Corman film and a few episodes of The Twilight Zone. He did get the lead in a critically acclaimed legal drama called For the People in 1965, but the show was a flop and was cancelled after only one season. On the upside, Shatner wouldn't have been available to be in Star Trek if the show did succeed. Boldly Going Where No Man Has Gone Before Shatner was also lucky that the first pilot for Star Trek was a complete bomb. While NBC like the idea of the show, they thought the first pilot was way too cerebral . Leonard Nimoy was the only actor who retained his role from the first pilot, everyone else was recast and that’s when William was hired as Captain James T. Kirk. One of the things that made Star Trek so popular was the way it took on current events with a sci-fi setting. The show dealt with race issues, the Cold War, and more and in an incredibly progressive manner. In fact, Shatner secured his place in television history by being a part of the first interracial kiss on U.S. television. Interestingly, the kiss was actually supposed to be between Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy), but when William got a hold of the script, he insisted that if anyone got to kiss Nichelle, it would be him. While the staff was a little worried about the impact of the kiss, the country was apparently quite ready for that moment. In fact, one of the most negative letters the show received read, "I don’t believe in the integration of races and the fraternization of the races, but anytime a red-blooded American boy like Captain Kirk gets a girl in his arms that looks like Lieutenant Uhura, he ain’t gonna fight it." As for positive responses, Nichols was told by Martin Luther King Jr. himself that his family watched the show and that Uhura was a role model and hero to his children. The show was a hit with fans but had terrible ratings. Even after a successful letter writing campaign and protests around the country managed to save the show from cancellation after its second season, the show's supporters couldn't convince the network to sign on for a fourth season. The End of an Era While young William Shatner never had trouble finding work, post-Star Trek Shatner did. After his wife left him the same year the show was cancelled, his life quickly fell apart. Shatner eventually started living out of a camper shell on the back of his pick up truck. He took any job he could find, no matter how small, including another Roger Corman flick, a few terrible horror movies, a slew of commercials and guest appearances on The $20,000 Pyramid, Hollywood Squares and Beat the Clock. While the actor was considered quite egotistical and somewhat difficult to work with during his reign on Star Trek, this point of his life was quite humbling. To this day, he still refers to the slump as "that period." Fortunately, the same thing that left him a typecast washout also helped revive his career a few years later. In 1973, Shatner did the voice for Captain Kirk in the animated version of the show and he soon started attending the many fan conventions that were held throughout the country. Syndicated reruns of Star Trek received higher ratings than the show did when it was originally on the air and Captain Kirk started to become a household name. In the mid-seventies, Paramount started working on a new version of the show, but when Star Wars came out and became a smash success, the studio decided to make the project into a movie instead. All of the original cast members reprised their roles for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Finally, Shatner's decade of failure came to an end and he starred in the next six Star Trek movies, ending his run when Kirk died in 1994's Star Trek Generations. He Can't Stand Trekkies While dedicated fans of Star Trek helped save Shatner's career, he still finds them incredibly annoying. In fact, if you ever saw him in the 1986 Saturday Night Live sketch where he tells convention goers to "get a life," then you've seen how he actually feels about Trekkies. While it's easy to consider him an ungrateful jerk for having such an attitude, the reality is that many fans did take their adoration way too far. In fact, in 1968, fans even tried to rip his clothes off as he left the NBC studios in New York. (Daily Motion link) This problem was worked into the storyline of the Tim Allen movie Galaxy Quest, as Allen plays an actor famous for playing a sci-fi captain on a popular TV series. In fact, at one point, the character even uses William's famous line and tells fans to "get a life." Other Famous Works While most people recognize Shatner for his role in Star Trek, he also was quite popular as T.J. Hooker, which he starred in from 1982 to 1986. He's also well known as the Priceline spokesman, a role he held from 1998 up until his character died earlier this year. His work in the Priceline ads even got him noticed by David E. Kelley, producer of The Practice, as a result, Kelley hired Shatner to star in the final season of the show –a role which earned William an Emmy. The character was popular enough that he was then moved onto the show Boston Legal, which earned him another Golden Globe and an Emmy. Throughout the years, he's recorded quite a few albums which have been widely parodied. William has also written a number of popular sci-fi novels, including TekWar, which became so popular that it inspired a series of Marvel comics, television movies, a video game and even a short-lived TV show. More recently, he started vlogging, launching his own channel on YouTube called "The Shatner Project," which has earned him a Streamy Award for Best Reality Web Series. This year he also premiered his one-man show on Broadway called "Shatner's World." Image Via rwoan [Wikipedia] A Few Other Fun Bits: Shatner's family name was originally spelled "Schatnner," but his grandfather changed it to sound more Anglo-Saxon. While many people, including William and J.J. Abrams, wanted to see Shatner play a role in the 2009 Star Trek film, Abrams couldn't find a way to work the actor in and didn't want to force the cameo. William can't stand watching himself perform and has never watched any episodes or films from the Star Trek series, with the exception of the dailies from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, which only watched because he directed the film. In 2006, Shatner sold one of his kidney stones to GoldenPalace.com for $25,000. The money, along with an additional $20,000 raised from the cast and crew of Boston Legal was donated to Habitat for Humanity. William was one of the first people to get in trouble on Google +. That's because his account was suspended within only a few days after he personally thanked every person who added him, which set off their spam flags. William Shatner has been in far too many movies and TV shows to list here and there's way too much fun trivia about his life as a result, so if you have any extra fun facts to share, go ahead and leave them in the comments. Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, Trek Today, Mashable

Architect Proposes Building 30-Story Skyscraper Out Of Wood Posted: 22 Mar 2012 12:01 AM PDT The seemingly radical idea of building a skyscraper out of wood is not so strange after all, as architect Michael Green is quick to point out, because of two main advantages wood has over concrete and steel-it’s eco-friendly and cost effective. Here’s more on Vancouver’s Tallwood project: 'Tallwood' would be made of large panels of 'laminated strand lumber'—a composite made by gluing together strands of wood. Trees are a renewable resource, and they help to reduce air pollution. Sourcing from sustainably-managed forests could be deemed more environmentally sensitive, according to CNN. Unlike concrete—which produces about 6-9kg of carbon dioxide for every 10kg of concrete—wood sucks carbon out of the atmosphere. And contrary to popular belief, wood actually is quite fire-resistant. "It may sound counter-intuitive, but performing well in a fire is something inherent in large pieces of wood, that's why in forest fires the trees that survive are the largest ones," Green said. I don’t know why, but the preliminary photos of this project remind me of the tabletop game Jenga… Link

Smithsonian Showcases The Art Of Video Games Posted: 21 Mar 2012 11:52 PM PDT (YouTube Link) Video games are finally being recognized as an art form, and the Smithsonian is celebrating with their Art of Video Games exhibit, featuring a staggering assortment of games both arcade and console, classic and cutting edge. The exhibit will be featured at the Smithsonian American Art Museum until September 30th, when it will begin a 10-stop nationwide tour. If the exhibit comes to my town I might actually have a reason to leave the house, yaay! Link  –via Geekosystem

Gag Me With A Toon Art Exhibition Posted: 21 Mar 2012 11:06 PM PDT Gag Me With A Toon is a fun art exhibition celebrating it’s fourth year in Los Angeles as a showcase for artworks which cast a new light on some familiar fictional faces. With works ranging from kooky (image above: Captain Planet Is A Doucher) to seriously cool (Dan Quintana’s 80s inspired take on Cheetara from Thundercats), make your way to the WWA Gallery in Culver City now until April 14th if you want to see these pop culture oddities in person. Link  –via DesignTAXI

Thomas Kuebler-Sculptor Of The Bizarre Posted: 21 Mar 2012 10:57 PM PDT Thomas Kuebler has some serious sculpting skills, and his life size sculptures are so eerily realistic that they appear to be sizing you up, waiting for the perfect opportunity to spring to life and make you jump right out of your skin. With gallery categories like Monsters & Madmen and Beggars & Freaks, this is one fantastic menagerie of figures that won’t leave you looking for a refund. Take your eyes on a tour of Thomas’ gallery pages at the link below, if you dare… Link   –image via Tom Kuebler’s gallery page

Bollywood Version Of Assassin’s Creed Posted: 21 Mar 2012 10:51 PM PDT (YouTube Link) This video shows Bollywood’s take on the Assassin’s Creed video game franchise, and the assassin in this version is unstealthy and a bit clumsy, until he remembers that he’s a badass and starts kicking some tail. If you discover that this vid floats your boat, check out the rest of the four part series, they’re bloody good! –via ComicsAlliance

Deviled Eggs Plate Posted: 21 Mar 2012 10:41 PM PDT Deviled Eggs Plate – $25.95 Are you a fan of those deliciously sinful deviled eggs? You need the Deviled Eggs Plate from the NeatoShop. This plate will make you laugh evilly when it is full and sob silently when it is empty. The Deviled Eggs Plate is wickedly funny. Fill it with your devilish culinary creation today! Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fun Kitchen Stuff. Link | Also check out our neat New Items

Universal Construction Kit Is A Building Toy Dream Come True Posted: 21 Mar 2012 10:36 PM PDT The Free Universal Construction Kit is an innovative new product that lets you combine pieces of building toys such as LEGO, K’Nex, Tinkertoys, Zoob, Duplo, etc., thereby allowing your creative mind to run free. Even better than the rock solid design of the adapters is the fact that the Universal Construction Kit is free to download and print via 3d printer. I’m not sure how much 3d printing costs, but the pieces are pretty tiny so it shouldn’t be too expensive, right? *sheepish grin* Link  –via Geekologie

The Itchy And Scratchy Supercut Posted: 21 Mar 2012 10:10 PM PDT (YouTube Link) One thing I love about the interwebs is the fact that people are always posting their own custom compilation videos for us all to enjoy. This time around it’s a supercut of Itchy and Scratchy, the bloody cat and mouse duo from The Simpsons. Enjoy this over 48 minute long homage to slapstick comedy and extreme cartoon violence, thanks to YouTube user MrBestDeni! –via Best Week Ever

Darth Knight Custom Action Figure Is All Kinds Of Awesome Posted: 21 Mar 2012 10:02 PM PDT Custom modeler John Harmon was inspired by Malmey Studios’ Darth Vader/Batman Armor crossover costume when he created this custom hybrid action figure. Here’s how the two figures became one: Darth Knight has been using the body from a Dark Knight Movie Masters Batman figure, and the head, lightsaber, chest plate, and other pieces from a Star Wars Transformers Darth Vader action figure. I transplanted the ears from the Batman head onto the Darth Vader head, and sculpted over them to blend them in with the sculpt of Vader's helmet. He features a paint job that really helps him stand out as his own concept, with silver accents, and other various parts painted in flat and gloss black. He has extra Darth Vader pieces attached to his belt, his chest plate has been implanted into Batman's torso (and he still retains full ab crunch movement!), and his legs have been sculpted over with rectangular plates. He also features the classic Darth Vader waist cloak made from a sheet of vinyl. He comes with his lightsaber as well (or light baton if you wish for him to be as non-lethal as the real caped crusader). Does this incarnation of the Caped Crusader still fight crime, or has he embraced the dark side and joined the ranks of Gotham City’s criminal elite? Link  –via Nerd Approved

Mad Men: the Game Posted: 21 Mar 2012 06:46 PM PDT (YouTube link) The Fine Brothers have created an 8-bit “choose your own adventure”-type interactive YouTube game based on the TV series Mad Men! Watch your favorite characters drink, smoke, fool around, and stab each other in the back in all their retro game style glory. There are three different endings to the game, depending on what order you choose your tasks. -Thanks, Benny & Rafi!

This Way Up Posted: 21 Mar 2012 06:22 PM PDT The South African carrier Kalula Airlines is known for their sense of humor. Take a look at the way they paint their planes! See more pictures of their planes in a collection of photos. Link -via reddit, where you’ll find more Kalula humor.

Seeing Around the Corner, Physics Style! Posted: 21 Mar 2012 05:58 PM PDT Peeking your head around the corner to see what's behind it? That's for mere mortals. MIT physicists Ramesh Raskar and Andreas Velten devised a fancy gizmo that allows them to see around corners with laser: They fired a laser through the beam-splitter and at a wall, with pulses occurring every 50 femtoseconds. [...] When the laser light hits the splitter, half of it travels to the wall, and then bounces to the object around the corner. The light reflects off the object, hitting the wall again, and then returns to a camera. The other half of the beam just goes directly to the camera. This half-beam serves as a reference, to help measure the time it takes for the other photons (particles of light) to return to the camera. Using a special algorithm to analyze when the returning photons arrive and checking them against the reference beam, the scientists were able to reconstruct an image of the object they were trying to see.Velten noted that when analyzing the photons, the ones that hit an object in a room will return sooner than the ones that bounce off a rear wall, and the algorithm accounts for that. They could even see three-dimensional objects, such as a mannequin of a running man used in the experiment. Link

How Steve Jobs Promoted Collaboration and Creativity by Forcing Everyone to Share Restrooms Posted: 21 Mar 2012 04:56 PM PDT Jonah Lehrer, the author of Imagine: How Creativity Works , told NPR's All Things Considered this interesting story of how Steve Jobs maximized collaboration and creativity over at Pixar. It's all about sharing bathrooms: "[Jobs] insisted there be only two bathrooms in the entire Pixar studios, and that these would be in the central space. And of course this is very inconvenient. No one wants to have to walk 15 minutes to go to the bathroom. And yet Steve insisted that this is the one place everyone has to go every day. And now you can talk to people at Pixar and they all have their 'bathroom story.' They all talk about the great conversation they had while washing their hands. " ... He wanted there to be mixing. He knew that the human friction makes the sparks, and that when you're talking about a creative endeavor that requires people from different cultures to come together, you have to force them to mix; that our natural tendency is to stay isolated, to talk to people who are just like us, who speak our private languages, who understand our problems. But that's a big mistake. And so his design was to force people to come together even if it was just going to be in the bathroom." Link

The Nanny One Percent Posted: 21 Mar 2012 03:55 PM PDT If you think the $1,200 Stokke Stroller that the rich people have to push around their babies are outrageously expensive, that ain't nothing compared to what they pay their nannies. Some of them make more than doctors! Adam Davidson wrote this intriguing article over at The New York Times Magazine on the strange world of the bizarre microeconomy of nannies of the wealthy: It took Zenaide Muneton 20 seconds to convince me that she was the perfect nanny. Short and dark-haired, she has a goofy, beaming smile and knows how to make everything fun for a little kid. Time to brush your teeth? She shakes her hands and does a pantomimed teeth-brushing dance. Bath time? She pumps her arms up and down in a going-to-the-tub march. After I told her I’d love to hire her, she smiled and thanked me. Then we both laughed, because there is no way I could possibly afford her. As one of New York City’s elite nannies, Muneton commanded around $180,000 a year — plus a Christmas bonus and a $3,000-a-month apartment on Central Park West. I should be her nanny. [...] “Over the last 10, 15 years, there has been a big change in how people view their household staff,” says Seth Norman Greenberg, vice president of the Pavillion Agency. Here are some demands on supernannies. Domestic Life A nanny can increase her marketability if she can help manage an art collection, draft correspondence, wash and fold 50 linens a day and help set up philanthropic events. Bonus points if she can do it all in Mandarin. Travel Elite nannies should be comfortable flying privately and in helicopters. Sports In addition to the generic stuff like skiing and snorkeling, some wealthy families request a nanny to steer a boat, groom a horse, operate a Zamboni or use a firearm to scare off a bear (at the country house). Got what it takes? It helps if you're Tibetan, of course: Link

Would You Reveal Your Facebook Password to get a Job? Posted: 21 Mar 2012 02:54 PM PDT When Justin Bassett interviewed for a job, there was one question that caught him by surprise: the interviewer asked for his Facebook password! Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information. Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no. In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person's social networking profiles and instead asking to log in as the user to have a look around. "It's akin to requiring someone's house keys," said Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor and former federal prosecutor who calls it "an egregious privacy violation." Would you share your Facebook password to get a job? Link

Mysterious Underground Booms in Wisconsin Posted: 21 Mar 2012 12:53 PM PDT For the past few nights, residents of the eastern Wisconsin city of Clintonville have been woken up by mysterious underground booms. City administrator Lisa Kuss said the booms have roused people from their beds and into the streets — some in pajamas. [...] Possible explanations for the underground ruckus have been nearly exhausted, she said. City officials have checked and rechecked methane levels at the local landfill, monitored water, sewer and gas lines, contacted the military about any exercises in the area, reviewed mining explosive permits and inspected the Pigeon River dam next to city hall. "To me, it just seems like the most logical explanation is some earth-moving, geological thing," Kuss said. "But then why is it not happening elsewhere? It's hard to believe my little city is geographically different than the rest of the world." Link So, armchair sleuths, what could it possibly be? My money's on the Mongolian Death Worm.

My Little Night Owl Bathrobe (Pink) Posted: 21 Mar 2012 11:02 AM PDT My Little Night Owl Bathrobe (Pink) – $32.95 Are you on the hunt for the perfect Easter gift for your favorite nocturnal owlet? You need the My Little Night Owl Bathrobe from the Neatoshop. This adorable terry bathrobe is a real hoot. My Little Night Owl Bathrobe also available in green. Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Baby & Tot items and fantastic Easter gifts! Link

Public Bus vs. School Bus Posted: 21 Mar 2012 10:49 AM PDT Like I tell my kids, you could always choose the alternative: walk to school. Comic by Jeff Wysaski at Pleated-Jeans. Link

Well-dressed Firefighters Posted: 21 Mar 2012 10:15 AM PDT (YouTube link) Firefighters Ted Aubart and Ben Terhaar of Sedan, Minnesota helped put out a truck fire at a St. Patrick’s Day parade last week. They drew attention because the volunteer firemen were wearing elegant formal dresses at the time. Every year, the men in the Sedan Fire Department trade their firefighting frocks for designer dresses as part of a beauty pageant of sorts that raises money for new equipment; however, as they were getting ready to ride in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, a pickup truck caught fire. That blaze spread to another car, and both Aubart and Terhaar hitched up their skirts and sprang into action. Aubart can be seen in the pink dress, helping a blue-bedecked Terhaar pour water on the smoldering vehicles. It only took a couple of minutes to put out the fire — even though Aubart did havev to adjust his fallen dress straps while on the run. Link -via The Daily What

A Past Look at the Future Posted: 21 Mar 2012 09:46 AM PDT To celebrate the USA’s bicentennial in 1976, ARCO asked people to predict what the world would be like in the year 2076. The responses were published in a book which included children’s drawings of their vision of the future. See more of them at Smithsonian’s Paleofuture blog. Link -via Everlasting Blort

Firefighter Helmet Cam Posted: 21 Mar 2012 09:32 AM PDT (YouTube link) A firefighter wearing a helmet-mounted camera attacks a fire in a two-story home. This shows how difficult it is to see what you’re doing in all that smoke! They got the job done anyway. -via Blame It On The Voices

The Tutu Project Posted: 21 Mar 2012 08:53 AM PDT Photographer Bob Carey put his dignity on the line for a good cause. He has been taking photos of himself wearing a pink tutu (and little else) in varied and beautiful  locations since 2003. Carey is now selling signed photographs and taking pre-orders for a book of pictures to be published this fall. Proceeds go to organizations fighting breast cancer. See plenty more pictures of Carey and his tutu at his newly-launched project site. Link -via Buzzfeed (where you can see a video of a tutu photo shoot)

The Pendulum Posted: 21 Mar 2012 08:02 AM PDT (Video Link) This beautiful, bittersweet love story is the most touching thing you’ll see all day. It uses no words. But it doesn’t need them. Love, like everything else in life, can be messy. The pendulum in the clock keeps swinging anyway. You can’t stop it. -via Kotaku

Rolls Royce Hearse Posted: 21 Mar 2012 07:39 AM PDT Charon will require more than a single coin for this ride. Rolls Royce will soon offer a hearse based on its Phantom model. The 23-foot aluminum car debuted at a recent funeral home expo in Bologna, Italy. Link -via Born Rich | Photo: Auto Guide

There’s a Phone Ringing in Your Tattoo! Posted: 21 Mar 2012 07:37 AM PDT Imagine that you get a tattoo using ferromagnetic ink that can respond to magnetic signals, such as, oh, your phone ringing. It sounds like a science fiction plot, but a group of inventors have filed a patent application on behalf of Nokia for just such an idea. At first read, it appears that the patent is for a patch you’d attach to your skin, but in notes 0026 and 0027 in the patent application, they mention tattoos. It is common for patents to be worded to cover all foreseeable future uses for a technology in its infancy, but this might just happen. What could possibly go wrong? It's not that I have an issue with tattoos — I sport a few myself — but I don't want anything that is permanently in my skin to be linked to technology that could be obsolete any second. Also, it seems like having an actual part of your body vibrate with your phone would be an incredibly creepy and weird feeling. If I were a more paranoid person, I might come up with a sci-fi scenario where people started getting these tattoos and then Nokia sold the technology to the government, who then used it to track and control people. Maybe I've read a few too many dystopian novels. It seems the more likely that people just wouldn’t buy it, or wouldn’t buy enough to make it a profitable venture. Would you consider such a tattoo? Link (Image credit: Flickr user irina slutsky)

Garden Carrot (Cake) Posted: 21 Mar 2012 07:20 AM PDT Kendra Arch plucked this carrot straight out of her garden. And by that I mean her kitchen. She sliced a frozen pound cake into wedges, which she then coated with melted orange candy. The green stem is made from taffy and the soil in the jar is actually crushed Oreos. So you need not fear accidentally consuming any natural food products while eating this cute dessert. Link -via Tasteologie

The Titanic Today Posted: 21 Mar 2012 07:00 AM PDT The wreckage of the RMS Titanic has been lying at the bottom of the ocean for 100 years. We’ve seen a few pictures, but we’ve never been able to see the whole thing -until now. National Geographic is showcasing new images of the shipwreck in its April issue. In recent years explorers like James Cameron and Paul-Henry Nargeolet have brought back increasingly vivid pictures of the wreck. Yet we've mainly glimpsed the site as though through a keyhole, our view limited by the dreck suspended in the water and the ambit of a submersible's lights. Never have we been able to grasp the relationships between all the disparate pieces of wreckage. Never have we taken the full measure of what's down there. Until now. In a tricked-out trailer on a back lot of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), William Lange stands over a blown-up sonar survey map of the Titanic site—a meticulously stitched-together mosaic that has taken months to construct. At first look the ghostly image resembles the surface of the moon, with innumerable striations in the seabed, as well as craters caused by boulders dropped over millennia from melting icebergs. Get a preview with some large-size, hi-resolution images at the Neatorama Spotlight Blog. Link

Soda Water Dogs Posted: 21 Mar 2012 06:35 AM PDT (YouTube link) According to the longer version, this is a 1986 clip from the BBC-TV series That’s Life. The George Hotel pub in Castle Cary, Somerset, has three German Shepherds, Jade, Guy, and Izzy, that enjoy a little seltzer. The dogs’ owner speaks to them in Japanese -or at least that’s what he said he was speaking. -via Arbroath

It’s Good to Be a YAVIS Posted: 21 Mar 2012 05:15 AM PDT by Alice Shirrell Kaswell, with Lucille Zimmerman and G. Neil Martin YAVIS is a term psychotherapists use to describe the profession’s favored type of patient. YAVISes are the patients who most benefit, in the eyes of therapists, from seeing the therapists. Here is a quick primer on the subject. The letters in YAVIS stand for “Young, Attractive, Verbal, Intelligent, and Successful.” This charming acronym is little known to the public. Within the professional psychotherapeutic community, it is discussed guardedly. Initially it was used as something of a wry criticism: In 1966 it was already a cliche that the patients who did best in psychotherapy were those who did not need it. The YAVIS criterion was an inside joke. Young, attractive, vital, intelligent, successful individuals benefit best from psychotherapy. In other words, the patients we work best with are the ones who need us least.[1] Later, though, many came to take it as less of a criticism, and more of a common sense guideline for professional success. Psychotherapy is a difficult undertaking, in which success is hard to define, and nearly impossible to predict. Even now, the most reliable predictor of psychotherapeutic outcome — some say the ONLY reliable predictor — is whether or not the patient is a YAVIS. The Varieties of YAVIS The components of the phrase YAVIS are slightly fungible. Some common variants are: * Young, Attractive, Verbal, Intelligent, and Successful * Young, Attractive, Verbal, Insightful, and Successful * Young, Attractive, Vital, Intelligent, and Successful * Young, Affluent, Verbal, Insured, and Single (or, in “German: Jung, Wohlhabend, Sprachgewandt, Versichert, und Alleinstehend”) There is, by the way, an opposite for the term YAVIS. It is HOUND, the explanation of which is perhaps best given on page 202 of Winfried Huber’s classic work, “Les Psychothérapies: Quelle Thérapie Pour Quel Patient?” (1993, Paris, Nathan). The flavor is most piquant in the original French: HOUND (c’est à dire casanier, vieux, sans succès, verbalement et intellectuellement peu doué) vous donnerait moins de chance d’être accepté par un psychanalyste et même tout simplement d’être pris en psychothérapie. Whence YAVIS? The earliest use of YAVIS was, so far as we could tell, in the 1964 book “Psychotherapy: the Purchase of Friendship,” by William Schofield (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey). A professor of psychiatry at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Schofield was not admiring of therapists’ apparent preference for some patients over others. On page 133 of his book, the word makes its print debut: What is there in the general theory of psychodynamics or psychotherapy to suggest that the neurosis of a 50-year-old commercial fisherman with an eighth-grade education will be more resistant to psychological help than a symptomatically comparable disturbance in a 35-year-old, college-trained artist?… It seems… likely that there are pressures toward a systematic selection of patients, pressures that are perhaps subtle and unconscious in part and that, in part, reflect theoretical biases common to all psychotherapists. These selective forces tend to restrict the efforts of the bulk of social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists to clients who present the “Yavis” syndrome — clients who are youthful, attractive, verbal, intelligent, and successful. Keeping Up With the YAVISes Not everyone in the therapeutic community agrees with this dour viewpoint. Some researchers took steps, however tentative, to inquire how non-YAVISES might be taught to behave in ways that would make them more attractive to therapists. A sterling example is given in the research report “Attraction-Enhancing Client Behaviors: a Structured Learning Approach for ‘Non-Yavis, Jr.,’” Rick L. Jennings and Carl S. Davis, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, vol. 45, no. 1, February 1977, pp. 135-44. Jennings and Davis discovered that non-YAVISes simply have trouble meeting the standards required of good therapeutic patients. Here is how they describe their research: The purpose of [our] study was to determine the effects of using structured learning techniques to train lower socioeconomic emotionally disturbed children and adolescents in verbal behaviors that are (a) useful in interviews, (b) attraction enhancing, and that (c) generalize to the psychotherapeutic context…. What Jennings and Davis found is discouraging: The effect of the experimental treatment upon attraction in the psychotherapeutic context was nonsignificant. But Jennings and Davis were not stymied by this discouraging news. Partial YAVIS Teaming up with two additional colleagues, Jennings and Davis then tried to narrow the range of the problem. This resulted in the report “Attractive Versus Unattractive Clients: Mediating Influences on Counselor’s Perceptions,” Kathleen N. Lewis, Carl S. Davis, Brian J. Walker, and Rick L. Jennings, Journal of Counseling Psychology, vol. 28, no. 4, July 1981, pp. 309-14. Lewis, Davis, Walker, and Jennings imply that all is not lost if you’re not a complete, total YAVIS: …Thus, although counselors tend to favor young, attractive, verbal, intelligent and successful (YAVIS) C[lient]s, certain YAVIS characteristics may have a more potent effect on C[lient] attractiveness than others. This is happy news. To be a good, attractive patient, it’s possible that you need just some — not necessarily all — of the YAVIS qualities. Valuable Research On the matter of YAVISes, much is still unknown. There are people whose family name is Yavis. It would be interesting and perhaps instructive to find out their experience with psychotherapy — average duration and outcome, satisfaction of the Yavises (be they also YAVISes or not) and of their therapists. Here’s another question: Are Yavises actively solicited by the therapeutic community? Fascinating and perhaps important as it might be to know these things, we hesitate to do this research ourselves. We leave it for others, who are more young, more attractive more verbal, more intelligent, and more successful than we, to pursue the Yavises for all they’re worth. References 1. George vonHilsheimer, PH.D., in his book “Brief Therapy: Doing Therapy Quickly and Effectively,” available on the web site <http://www.eegspectrum.com/books/gvh/brief01.htm> _____________________ This article is republished with permission from the March-April 2001 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.

The Rectangular Galaxy Posted: 21 Mar 2012 02:42 AM PDT Most galaxies are in the form of ellipticals, spirals, and irregular blobs, but not LEDA 074886. The dwarf galaxy 70 million light-years away is rectangular: [Professor Alister Graham of Swinburne University of Technology] said the rare rectangular-shaped galaxy was a very unusual object. "It's one of those things that just makes you smile because it shouldn't exist, or rather you don't expect it to exist. "It's a little like the precarious Leaning Tower of Pisa or the discovery of some exotic new species which at first glance appears to defy the laws of nature." The unusually shaped galaxy was detected in a wide field-of-view image taken with the Japanese Subaru Telescope for an unrelated program by Swinburne astrophysicist Dr Lee Spitler. The astronomers suspect it is unlikely that this galaxy is shaped like a cube. Instead, they believe that it may resemble an inflated disc seen side on, like a short cylinder. Link

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