Neatorama |
- Buses Loaded With IV Drip Dispensers Make The Rounds In Las Vegas
- Man Breaks Up Subway Fight By Calmly Eating A Bag Of Chips
- The Hulk Makes The Cover Of Muscle And Fitness Magazine
- Short Film-Blow Out Sale
- The Rotoscoped Evil Dead
- The Dogs Aboard the Titanic
- Alien Egg Ice Tray
- An Igloo for Book Lovers
- Rowing a Boat with an Excavator
- Halloween Costume for a Tall Guy: A Short Man on Stilts
- Cheesecake-Stuffed Strawberries
- Non-Latin Versions of Famous Logos
- Kids Birthday Parties … at the Airport
- Draco Malfoy, The Hottest Bachelor in Wizarding
- It Doesn’t Get Any More Hipster Than This
- Sleeping Seal
- How to Wash a Chicken
- The Big Bang Theory Soft Kitty Hoodie
- Retro Mosaic Pac-Man Table
- The Army of Luck
- Distant Star May Have Nine Planets
- Stop-Motion LEGO Proposal
- The Titanic was a Real Ship!
- Henri 2, Paw de Deux
- Architectural Criticism Translated
- Blood Diamond
- Thanks a Lot, Robot Friend
- Kidnap Victim Saved by Twitter Followers
- “Don’t Stop Believing” Sung By the Movies
- Yummy Pockets PB&J
- Teacup Chandelier
- Gun Safe/Bed
- An Interview (and book giveaway) with Maggie Koerth-Baker
| Buses Loaded With IV Drip Dispensers Make The Rounds In Las Vegas Posted: 12 Apr 2012 04:31 AM PDT Taking a trip to Las Vegas can result in gamblers losing the shirt right off their back at the game tables, and that feeling of loss often leads to bouts of binge drinking and self loathing. Good thing the Hangover Heaven buses have come to town! Equipped with IV drip dispensers and a soothing air conditioned atmosphere, Hangover Heaven is both the result of, and answer to, Sin City’s excessive lifestyle. So don’t be afraid to drink up when you visit the Vegas Strip, because the Hangover Heaven will pick you up off the floor and put you back on your feet again!  |
| Man Breaks Up Subway Fight By Calmly Eating A Bag Of Chips Posted: 12 Apr 2012 04:09 AM PDT You know you’ve seen some stuff go down on the subway when you don’t even bother to stop eating a bag of chips when a fight erupts right in front of you. You’re officially the Fonzi of snack food when you break up a fight while keeping a cool head and continuing to chomp down on said chips. I smell an endorsement deal in this guy’s future! (NSFW due to coarse language) –via Best Week Ever |
| The Hulk Makes The Cover Of Muscle And Fitness Magazine Posted: 12 Apr 2012 03:22 AM PDT The Hulk might seem like the perfect cover model for a magazine like Muscle and Fitness, but consider this-do you really want the guys that read your magazine getting even more jacked up on “supplements” in an attempt to look like Marvel Comics’ raging tower of muscle? And isn’t this cover a bit misleading, considering that Bruce Banner (The Hulk’s human alter-ego) is a scientist with the muscle mass and strength of, well, a scientist?! Although the Hulk aspect seems a bit silly, I am intrigued by the article entitled “Bulletproof Your Knees”, so I’m gonna ask around and see if anyone I know has picked up this issue. Well played Muscle and Fitness, well played indeed… |
| Posted: 12 Apr 2012 02:15 AM PDT This silly short film is called Blow Out Sale, and it features some familiar Hollywood faces, including Danny Pudi from the hit TV series Community, hamming it up like guys who don’t give a damn if people judge them for having a good time while the camera’s rolling. The story plays out like a scene from Abed’s imagination, maybe it helped shape/inspire Danny’s character on Community? –via Tastefully Offensive |
| Posted: 12 Apr 2012 12:08 AM PDT Rotoscoping is a tedious process that involves animating over a live action film frame by frame, which means it took waaaaaay too long to rotoscope this trailer for the horror classic The Evil Dead. And, while the end result is pretty cool looking and fun to watch, it’s highly unlikely that PFR Studios will be rotoscoping any more of the film, because this bit is almost three years old! –via Topless Robot |
| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 10:11 PM PDT
The exhibit at the Widener University Art Gallery in Chester, Pennsylvania, will run through May 12. Admission is free. Link -via Time |
| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 08:03 PM PDT Alien Egg Ice Tray – $10.95 Easter may be over, but that doesn’t mean the egg-stravaganza has to end. Party on with the Alien Egg Ice Tray from the NeatoShop. This fantastic ice tray is made of food-safe silicone. It also works great for making delicious Alien egg shaped chocolates. Alien Big Chap Ice Tray also available. Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more unusual Ice Trays. |
| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 07:51 PM PDT
Miler Lagos’s installation at the MagnanMetz Gallery in New York City is entitled simply “Home”. After he finished it, the dome was completely enclosed and self-supporting. Just imagine if you had one of these, consisting entirely of the books that you have read over the course of your life. |
| Rowing a Boat with an Excavator Posted: 11 Apr 2012 07:27 PM PDT (Video Link) Paddle down the Saigon River in Vietnam. You don’t need a boat engine. You don’t need a propeller. You don’t even need oars. All you need is an excavator. -via Gizmodo |
| Halloween Costume for a Tall Guy: A Short Man on Stilts Posted: 11 Apr 2012 06:56 PM PDT The idea was a long shot, but it worked. Redditor firstclass_scamp, who is seven feet tall, altered a pair of pants so that he looks like a short man standing on top of a pair of stilts. |
| Cheesecake-Stuffed Strawberries Posted: 11 Apr 2012 06:41 PM PDT To maintain a healthy diet, you need to eat five servings of fruit or vegetables a day. Strawberries are a fruit. Ergo, these wonderful bite-sized delights are a healthy choice. You can find the recipe by Natalie of The Sweets Life at the link. Link -via Briannah Munoz |
| Non-Latin Versions of Famous Logos Posted: 11 Apr 2012 05:55 PM PDT
Can you guess what which companies two logos above belong to? Designer Daily has a neat post showcasing non-latin versions of some of the world's most famous logos (I really like how they preserve the arrow in the logo on the left!): Link Previously on Neatorama: The Evolution of Tech Companies' Logos | Evolution of Fast Food Logos | Evolution of Car Logos and The Stories Behind Ten Famous Food Logos |
| Kids Birthday Parties … at the Airport Posted: 11 Apr 2012 03:25 PM PDT
In the post-9/11 era of tight security, Americans usually avoid going to the airport unless they absolutely have to, but in Europe, the halcyon days of aviation are still here:
Guests still have to clear security, but the upside of that is you can use the X-ray machines to guess the party gifts! Daniel Michaels of The Wall Street Journal's The A-Hed column explains: Link |
| Draco Malfoy, The Hottest Bachelor in Wizarding Posted: 11 Apr 2012 02:24 PM PDT
Forget Harry Potter! The Hottest Bachelor in Wizarding is none other than Draco Lucius (Luscious? Oh my!) Malfoy. It must be true! I read it on The Witch Weekly ... I mean, Rita Skeeter doesn't lie, does she? Via Hearts Should Be Unbreakable |
| It Doesn’t Get Any More Hipster Than This Posted: 11 Apr 2012 01:23 PM PDT |
| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 12:22 PM PDT
Photographer Alex Mustard noted that even though seals are "grumpy and sluggish" on land, they're quite graceful in the water. Even when they're sleeping:
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| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 12:07 PM PDT Watch Zach as he shows you all the necessary steps to chicken bathing. Link -via Swiss Miss |
| The Big Bang Theory Soft Kitty Hoodie Posted: 11 Apr 2012 11:45 AM PDT The Big Bang Theory Soft Kitty Hoodie - $47.95 Attention The Big Bang Theory fans! Are you looking for the purr-fect springtime hoodie? You need the Big Bang Theory Soft Kitty Hoodie from the NeatoShop. This great zippered hooded sweatshirt comes complete with tail, ears, and paw mittens. This hoodie is so comfy it will make you want to sing about your favorite little ball of fur. Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Apparel & Accessories! |
| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 11:40 AM PDT Kiran Hungin designed and crafted this Pac-Man mosaic in glass tile on top of a 1960s-era Formica table. It’s one-of-a-kind, for sale at Folksy, which is a British craft market. Link -via Boing Boing |
| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 11:21 AM PDT
If one waving Maneki Neko or Japanese Lucky Cat brings you luck, then hundreds of them should be enough to win the Mega Millions, right? For his art installation The Global Pursuit of Happiness, or The Army of Luck, Boris Petrovsky enlisted the aid of 520 Lucky Cats, synchronized to wave us a luck tsunami. Best of all, viewers can command the cats to wave at will:
Someone enter 4 8 15 16 23 42 for me! Link - via Animal |
| Distant Star May Have Nine Planets Posted: 11 Apr 2012 11:04 AM PDT
Scientists believe the planets, if they actually exist, are too close to the star to ever support life. Link (Unrelated image credit: NASA) |
| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 10:35 AM PDT Flimmaker Walt Thompson asked Nealey to marry him, by showing her this stop-motion video! Star Wars characters showed up as witnesses. -via Geeks Are Sexy |
| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 10:04 AM PDT
Sunday will be the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Some people are just finding out that this was a real historical event, and not just a figment of James Cameron’s fertile imagination. See the full graphic at TwitPic. Link -via Breakfast Links |
| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 09:03 AM PDT Do you recall The Ennui of Henri? Years later, the existential French cat is back with a sequel. And the angst-ridden Henri is still bemoaning the banality of his existence. -via Daily Picks and Flicks |
| Architectural Criticism Translated Posted: 11 Apr 2012 08:50 AM PDT When you come across an architectural criticism, relax, the critic may well be thinking the same thing you are. Grant Snider of Incidental Comics consulted his twin brother the architect about this comic. All these buildings are within a two blocks of each other in Denver and are listed at his site. Link -via Laughing Squid |
| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 08:02 AM PDT The artist known as simply ABOVE has been making headlines with his social and political street art for years. His latest installation is painted on a wall in Jewel City, the diamond trade area of Johannesburg, South Africa. The shenanigans involved in getting permission for the paint job ensure that it probably won’t last long, but the project is documented both in video and in pictures. Continue reading for the story of how he pulled off this stunt and see photographs of the finished work.
Find out more at ABOVE’s website. Link -Thanks, ABOVE! Previously at Neatorama: 10 Facts About Diamonds You Should Know |
| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 07:19 AM PDT Aren’t robots supposed to help us? This Japanese beer-pouring robot seems to have had a few too many himself. And just keeps talking. -via Boing Boing |
| Kidnap Victim Saved by Twitter Followers Posted: 11 Apr 2012 07:04 AM PDT Lynn Peters of Johannesburg, South Africa, sent out a Tweet that her boyfriend had been kidnapped Sunday night. He was put in the trunk of his own car by armed carjackers! However, the unnamed man was able to contact Peters via phone. Her alert sent the Twittersphere into action.
The victim was rescued unharmed. The perpetrators fled on foot, and have not yet been apprehended. Link -via Gizmodo |
| “Don’t Stop Believing” Sung By the Movies Posted: 11 Apr 2012 06:23 AM PDT YouTube member dondrapersayswhat assembled movie clips to sing the Journey song “Don’t Stop Believin,” which has somehow become a classic in the blink of an eye (really? has it been 30 years? oh, 31!) in this supercut. Some of the clip selections are a real delight! -via The Daily What |
| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 06:21 AM PDT
Have you been endlessly searching for a way to declare your undying love and devotion for the peanut butter and jelly sandwich? You need the Yummy Pockets PB&J bag from the NeatoShop. This great 2 compartment pouch is your perfect everyday companion. Fill it with supplies, money, and other life necessities. The Yummy Pockets PB&J pouch is a great way to stay close to your true love without subjecting anyone else to serious food allergies. Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more deliciously funny Wallets, Purses & Coin Bags. |
| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 06:17 AM PDT Chris of La Petite Nymphéa spotted this chandelier in a shop in Valencia, Spain. It would look absolutely charming in a parlor. Link (Google Translate) -via Offbeat Home |
| Posted: 11 Apr 2012 05:39 AM PDT With room for 35 rifles and 70 handguns, the BedBunker can hold a substantial portion of your gun collection. The vault replaces a set of box springs, so it doesn’t take up a lot of room in your house. When you need a gun, just push the mattress off and open the door. Product Page -via DVICE (where there’s a video) |
| An Interview (and book giveaway) with Maggie Koerth-Baker Posted: 11 Apr 2012 05:22 AM PDT Maggie Koerth-Baker, the science editor at BoingBoing, has just published an amazing new book called Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before it Conquers Us, about the very hard choices we face in powering our lives without doing ourselves in. It's adroitly written with wonderful research behind it and some very warm, yet no-nonsense Midwestern charm, as she ties many of the problems our society is facing with personal stories from growing up and living in and around the real farmvilles. We’re going to give away TWO autographed copies of the book at the end of the interview, so be sure to read it thoroughly to better your chances of scoring one of them. Believe me: This is a book you want on your shelves, packed with insight into, perhaps, the biggest problem facing the modern world.
Q: Throughout the book, I found myself becoming incredibly depressed about the future and then, alternately, incredibly optimistic about it. Is this sort of how you felt, both in the research and writing of the book? I mean, talk of doomsday scenarios due to global warming and massive energy shortages can't be too uplifting to study, yet the realm of possibilities surrounding alternative energy are way exciting to think about, especially as you get further into them. You even write in the book: "I have to admit that when I think about all of the coordination, education, and nonpartisan (not only bipartisan) decision making that needs to happen, I get the urge to go back to bed and hide under the covers." Have you been on an emotional roller coaster these past couple years working on the book? A: Oh, definitely. Or, rather, I'm not sure I'd call it an emotional roller coaster, because it's not linear like that. It's more like an emotional scrambler. I'd find myself collecting all this information–knowing that every possible solution was going to have downsides and risks, and that the risk of doing nothing were even worse–and then kind of had to sift through it all and figure out a way to talk about it that emphasized both sides of that coin. And that's hard. There are lots of times when you feel both deflated and optimistic at once. And it really goes against the dominant narratives on energy: Which are either that we don't need to change anything, or that we need to change and that those changes are inherently ideal things that will have no risks or downsides whatsoever. Both perspectives are wrong. Q: In the intro, you write: "This is a book about what we'll have to deal with and the changes that will have to happen, because we really have no other choice." What does the choice to do nothing result in? A: The choice to do nothing will result in change. The choice to do nothing is risky, riskier I think than trying to do something even if that something is flawed and imperfect. I can't emphasize this enough. We have aging infrastructure that wasn't built in any ideal way to begin with. We have climate change playing out in front of our faces. We have limited supplies of fossil fuels so that, even the stuff we have lots of still–natural gas and coal–are projected to only be enough for 100 or 200 years. (And that's at current levels of demand. And if you don't change anything, then demand always goes up.) All those things are happening, whether we ignore them or not. As they play out, they will force changes to the way we use energy, the way we make it, and the way we live. They will force us to spend lots and lots of money. So what we have isn't a choice between spending a ton of money or not, between changing or not. It's a choice between different kinds of changes. Do we want the kind of change where we spend money upfront to save it in the long run and have some control over how we address these issues? Or do we want the kind of changes that just happen to us, whether we like them or not, and cost us dearly down the road? I know my answer. Q: With regard to energy solutions in the future, you write: "Nobody gets everything he or she wants." Of all the interested parties, who gets most of what s/he wants and who gets the short end of the stick?
A: Depends on the specific thing. There's not an overall answer to that, because the parties, and what they want, shift and morph depending on what aspects of this you're looking at. And there is tons of room for reasonable people to disagree and to have to compromise. To give you some big-picture examples of the kind of compromises I'm talking about: If we take action on this, we're probably going to have energy that is, at least somewhat, more expensive than it is right now. And we're going to have to figure out how to deal with that so it doesn't excessively burden the poor. At the same time, if we take action on this–even if we have all the political willpower you could want–we aren't going to get completely off of fossil fuels. Not in my lifetime, anyway. When I talk about "short term" changes, I'm talking about stuff that happens over 30 or 40 years. That's the timescale infrastructure works on. You have to change the infrastructure, you can't just add wind and solar power to what's already there. So that's going to take time. And money. And that means we can't just shut down all our nuclear power and coal power anytime soon. Not if we also want to have reliable electricity supply. Q: Talking about our individual efforts to attack the problems (putting solar panels on our roofs, driving hybrids, recycling, etc.) you write: "you can't do this yourself. Coordinating lots of different solutions on the level of systems, as fast as we possibly can is something that requires a group effort directed by policy, not volunteerism." So why should we even bother recycling if it doesn't really make a dent in the big picture? A: Because it's a little more complicated than that. One of the things I tried to point out in the book is that policies are important, systems are important. But that doesn't mean you have to sit around waiting for politicians to act. I think that most of us would agree that we should act out our values. I recycle because I think recycling is important. On my own, I don't really matter much. The world is not going to end if I miss a week. And it's not going to be saved if I recycle 10x better than my neighbors. But I recycle, because I believe that it's important to reduce waste and to reuse what we can. Here's why I think systems are important, though. It's easy for me to recycle. Minneapolis has curb-side recycling. Every other week, I just stick the bags out there and somebody takes care of it. That's not the case in a lot of places in America. In fact, I was just talking to some friends in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where most of the city has curb-side recycling, but the neighborhood they live in–which is poor and pretty rough–doesn't. Their neighbors don't recycle. I do recycle. That's not because I'm a better person. It's because recycling is easy for me, and it's really, really hard for someone who doesn't have curb-side recycling, and maybe doesn't even have reliable personal transportation to drive to a recycling center with all their stuff. That's why systems matter. Obviously, big changes are made up of individuals making small changes. But the systems and the policy influence who can make those small changes, how easy it is to make those small changes, and what those small changes cost you. Individual decisions don't matter at all, except as a way to play you personal beliefs. BUT, if you can aggregate those individual decisions, enable huge groups of people to do small changes all at once, then what individuals do does matter. Policy is what makes your choices really powerful. It's not bottom-up, or top-down. It's both. Bottom-up influences top-down. Top-down enables more bottom-up. Q: Throughout the book, you take little trips to different parts of the country to research energy solutions, BETA programs and various tests in the sector. Of all the trips, which was your favorite? Why? A: Oh, man. "What's your favorite?" is always the hardest question anyone can ask about anything. I think the trip that made the biggest impact on me was the one I took to Florida to visit the Naval Air Station at Jacksonville. That was a really eye-opening trip. Partly because it brought me face-to-face with how much work the military is doing on efficiency, conservation, and alternative generation. But partly, it was because that trip really drove home for me how important systems and infrastructure really are, and put the relationship between policy and personal choice into context for me. In the book, I talk about driving by the Station's new energy efficient aircraft hanger, and seeing how they didn't need to have electric lights on in the hanger bays because the inside was painted white, so that light from outside could reflect off the walls and keep the space feeling bright and comfortable for the people working there. And then we drove past an old aircraft hanger, where the interior was painted a dingy beige. That building had tons of electric lights on and it still felt dark. So a simple paint job made it easy for a lot of people to choose to use less energy. In fact, it made using less energy a better option than using more. That was the trip that really helped me start to understand that energy isn't just sources, it's systems. Q: One of the things I loved about the book was how you wove your own personal family history and stories into the narrative, which clearly help us understand why you're so interested in this subject. The book has a wonderful, local, homespun feel to it – very Bill Bryson, yet the version of him that married the Freakonomics guys. This excerpt is a perfect example:
Before you started working on the book, did you know you'd be writing a lot about your own, personal experiences, and your hometown and other towns you've lived in or did that sort of evolve naturally as a logical narrative to help make your points and deliver the story? And how does your very real family feel about appearing in book of this nature? A: I didn't know that I was going to talk about that going in. It's something that kind of evolved as I tried to come up with ways to talk about energy and how it works in the context of real people. A writer can always fall back on the hypothetical "you", but I don't think that's as relatable as we think it is. If I use the hypothetical you, you can say, "Well, that's not something I would do." And then, as the writer, I lose you. Or, if I use it too much, the hypothetical you just starts to feel clichéd. It loses its power to connect people to an issue. And then it's worthless. I think that telling stories is a better way to help people think about an abstract concept like energy. Where I didn't have stories from other people, I filled in the gaps with stories from my own life and my own family. As to how my family feels about it, I've honestly not talked to anyone about it much really. The stories that I used are real, and they're personal, but they aren't really personal information, if you know what I mean. For instance, I used my Dad's progression from a typewriter to a word processor to an internet-enabled computer as a way of describing smart grids. That's not really divulging anything really private about my Dad. It's just using him as a way to talk about what is now an almost universal experience in this country. He recently told me that he really loved the book, so I assume he was okay with that. Some of the most emotionally intimate stuff was really about my grandparents, and I couldn't run that by them. By the time the book was going through edits and the text was being finalized, all of my grandparents had passed away. My Grammy died in February of 2011. My maternal Grandfather, who also comes up in the book, died in August of the same year. So, to me, those stories have also become kind of a memorial, a way of honoring these people who I love and sharing my memories of them with the rest of the world. Q: Lastly, what are you working on next? Besides the wonderful blog posts on BB, what's your next big project? A: I'm really excited about getting back to being able to do some long-form stories, both on BoingBoing and in magazines. I've got a ton of ideas that have been pretty much on hold because of the book and it's going to be great to be able to finally tackle them. One thing I'm really interested in right now is the future of agriculture. In particular, how we're adapting the plants we grow for food to meet the challenges of climate change. There's some really cool work being done, for instance, where researchers are breeding food crops with ancient, wild plants that are related to them. Those wild plants are, essentially, weeds. And weeds are really tough, they can survive stuff that domesticated crops can't. So what the scientists are trying to do is breed some of that toughness into our food plants without losing the traits that make the food plants good for feeding so many people. Want to win an autographed copy of Maggie’s new book? Answer the following questions correctly in the comments below and also tell us why YOU deserve to win! We’ll pick two winners at random and pop the book in the mail to you! 1. Which research trip made the biggest impact on Maggie while working on the book? 2. When was Maggie’s Grammy “ecstatic?” 3. Why do you deserve a copy of Maggie’s new book?
See also: More articles by Maggie Koerth-Baker. |
Of all the coverage of the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster, has anyone thought about the dogs? There were a dozen canines aboard the ship when it sank. J. Joseph Edgette, professor emeritus of education and folklorist emeritus at Widener University is curating an exhibit devoted to the dogs of the Titanic.
Maybe we should have kept Pluto! A star 127 light-years away shows evidence of having a record (as far as we know) nine planets revolving around it. The star is designated as HD 10180, in the southern constellation Hydrus. The discovery is the culmination of ten years of data crunching. See, we can’t see these planets.
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