Neatorama

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• How to Make Snail Shell Planters
• The Lionel Richie Cheese Platter
• <i>Rent</i> in Klingon
• Drunk Driver Caught on Motorized Picnic Table
• 11-Set Venn Diagram
• My Little Stitch
• AHA! Sticky Notes
• Flash Flood in Las Vegas
• Couple Gets Married, Dances in Jetpacks
• Happy Birthday, Kenny Baker!
• A Squid Listening to Cypress Hill's "Insane in the Brain"
• How To Get Your Kids To Enjoy Meat
• Duct Tape Bandit
• Labyrinth Tattoo
• Zombie Luau Pineapple
• Aston Martin DRB1 "Airfix" Kit
• Glowing South American Roaches
• Spider-Man Pumpkin Push Ins
• Mirror, Mirror OFF the Wall: Woman Went Mirror-Free for 1 Year
• Rolling in the Higgs
• World's Most Complex Borders
• 20 Incredible Migrating Monarch Butterfly Pictures
• Can Maru Get The Mouse?
• Surgeon Commandeers Pink Bike to Get to Work
• R.I.P. Muppeteer Jerry Nelson
• Water Wigs
• Making Money off Mobile
• Dear Peach
• Van Gogh's Brushstrokes Reproduced with Blocks of Wood
• Animal The Muppets EZ-On Romper

How to Make Snail Shell Planters Posted: 25 Aug 2012 04:00 AM PDT Megan Andersen planted this adorable little garden of succulent plants inside snail shells. She writes: I selected some succulents cuttings that had begun to root, and pushed a few small plants into each of the shells. Then, I filled the shells with damp potting soil.  Link -via Recyclart

The Lionel Richie Cheese Platter Posted: 25 Aug 2012 03:00 AM PDT Some people have many passions, some people only have a few. If your three biggest passions are fine cheese, Lionel Richie and puns, then I can't think of a single item that would better fit in your life. Link Via Laughing Squid

<i>Rent</i> in Klingon Posted: 25 Aug 2012 02:00 AM PDT (Video Link)  Comedian Rachel Bloom sang a Klingon language version of "Seasons of Love" from the musical Rent. Nice, eh? Well, YouTube commenter Jordan Wright points out the obvious problem: The Klingon year is 384.2 days long or 553248 minutes, not the 525600 as the original lyrics would have you believe. -via The Mary Sue

Drunk Driver Caught on Motorized Picnic Table Posted: 25 Aug 2012 01:00 AM PDT Hand over the keys to that picnic table. You're in no condition to drive. An Ontario man is facing charges after he and his buddies constructed a motorized picnic table and drove it around town. Police said they attached a lawnmower motor and four customized wheels to the picnic table and took it for a spin on Sunday evening. [...] When officers found the table parked on a sidewalk, they charged a 46-year-old South Huron, Ont., man with having an open container of liquor in a public place. Link -via Dave Barry | Photo (unrelated): One Stop Performance

11-Set Venn Diagram Posted: 25 Aug 2012 12:00 AM PDT You've never seen the Venn Diagram like this before: a flowery diagram for 11 sets of objects, made by Khalegh Mamakani and Frank Ruskey at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada: One of the sets is outlined in white, and the colours correspond to the number of overlapping sets. The team called their creation Newroz, Kurdish for "the new day". The name also sounds like "new rose" in English, reflecting the diagram's flowery appearance. To find the rose-like diagram, the pair had to comb through myriad potential diagrams, represented as lists of numbers corresponding to the way the curves cross. Sifting through all of the possibilities for an 11-set diagram would be an impossible task even for the combined might of Earth's computers, so the researchers narrowed the options by restricting the search to diagrams with a property called crosscut symmetry, meaning that a segment of each set crosses all the other sets exactly once. New Scientist has the post (and the nifty gallery of more sets of Venn Diagrams): Link

My Little Stitch Posted: 24 Aug 2012 11:00 PM PDT Custom ponymaker lilgryphon23 used Apoxie Sculpt to make an indestructible weapon. Somepony's going to get into trouble for this. Link

AHA! Sticky Notes Posted: 24 Aug 2012 10:00 PM PDT AHA! Sticky Notes - $2.95 Are you having an epiphany or moment of clarity? Quick, jot down your thoughts on a AHA! Sticky Note from the NeatoShop. This nifty little notepad comes with 100 sheets so that you may express your genius over and over again.   Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Office & Desk items!  Link

Flash Flood in Las Vegas Posted: 24 Aug 2012 10:00 PM PDT Tiffany and I were in Las Vegas a couple of days ago for a trade show, when our flight back was delayed because of lightning near the airport. We don't usually associate rain with Las Vegas, but occasionally it does rain there. And when it rains heavily, it floods, as shown by this photo above taken by Neatoramanaut Jen at the corner of Tropicana and Boulder Highway (Thanks, Jen!)

Couple Gets Married, Dances in Jetpacks Posted: 24 Aug 2012 09:00 PM PDT I'm now kicking myself for not thinking of it first: The 25-year-old former wedding planner from Grand Rapids, Mich., says she wanted a unique ceremony. So the couple donned the $90,000 contraptions on their backs, along with a wetsuit for the groom and white board shorts and a rash-guard shirt for the bride. The jetpacks from Jetlev Southwest helped the couple hover a few feet above the water, to the cheers of their wedding guests. You can watch a video at the link. Link -via DVICE | Image: USA Today

Happy Birthday, Kenny Baker! Posted: 24 Aug 2012 08:00 PM PDT Don't recognize the name Kenny Baker? He's R2D2! Baker was inside the robot for all six Star Wars movies. In honor of his 78th birthday, mental_floss has ten facts you might not know about Baker, whose career has been much more than just the little droid. Link

A Squid Listening to Cypress Hill's "Insane in the Brain" Posted: 24 Aug 2012 07:00 PM PDT (Video Link)  Scientists used electrodes to pump awesome 90s music into a squid. Then they watched it change color: During experiments on the axons of the Woods Hole squid (loligo pealei), we tested our cockroach leg stimulus protocol on the squid's chromatophores. The results were both interesting and beautiful. The video is a view through an 8x microscope zoomed in on the dorsal side of the caudal fin of the squid. We used a suction electrode to stimulate the fin nerve. -via Colossal, which is celebrating its second blogiversary

How To Get Your Kids To Enjoy Meat Posted: 24 Aug 2012 06:00 PM PDT Worried your kids are going to be peer pressured to become vegetarians? Then show them just what a magnificent treat meat can be with these adorable and delicious-looking steak pops. Link

Duct Tape Bandit Posted: 24 Aug 2012 05:00 PM PDT Proving once again that all you need is duct tape, here's the story of how police in Poulsbo, Washington, is looking for a robber with an unusual method of disguise: With four banks robbed in less than three months, police in Edmonds, Poulsbo, Redmond, and Stanwood are collaborating to try to track down a bank robber dubbed the "Duct Tape Bandit." Link - via Arbroath Surprisingly, this is not the first time duct tape is used as a disguise in crime.

Labyrinth Tattoo Posted: 24 Aug 2012 04:00 PM PDT Love The Neverending Story tattoo that John posted a couple of days ago? Then take a look at these beauties: Phil Garner's Labyrinth tattoos by Richard "Bez" Beston of Triplesix Studios. I see Hoggle, Goblin, Sir Didymus, The Fire Gang, Ludo, and The Worm. Bowie and his, uh, "package" is inexplicably missing. Flavorwire has 24 more tattoos inspired by children's movies: Link - Thanks Russ!

Zombie Luau Pineapple Posted: 24 Aug 2012 03:00 PM PDT Just look at this pineapple! I want that at my next party -or right now, whichever comes first. This was made by food artist Kari Jo Skogquist. See more  pictures of it at Laughing Squid. Link (Image credit: Kari Jo Skogquist)

Aston Martin DRB1 "Airfix" Kit Posted: 24 Aug 2012 02:00 PM PDT If you love playing with the Airfix scale model kits, you'll love this: a life-size "kit" of the 1959 Aston Martin DBR1 by Evanta Motor Co. Gorgeous! Link - via Get Addicted To

Glowing South American Roaches Posted: 24 Aug 2012 01:30 PM PDT These insects look scary enough in daylight, then they glow in the dark! This remarkable species of South American cockroach, Lucihormetica luckae, owes its fluorescence to bacteria. The spots on the dark brown area of its carapace are pits inhabited by microbes that glow under fluorescent light. A recent analysis of these creatures’ bioluminescence demonstrates that they and their cousin species glow at the same wavelengths as a toxin-producing beetle that lives in their area, suggesting that the roaches are mimicking a deadly neighbor to avoid getting picked off by predators. Link -via Buzzfeed

Spider-Man Pumpkin Push Ins Posted: 24 Aug 2012 01:15 PM PDT Spider-Man Pumpkin Push Ins - $14.95 Attention all you crappy pumpkin carvers! Are you tired of toiling endlessly just to create a subpar pumpkin? Now you can cheat your way to an adorable creation with the Spider-Man Pumpkin Push Ins from the NeatoShop. This great set is easy and fun to use.    Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Halloween Items.  Link

Mirror, Mirror OFF the Wall: Woman Went Mirror-Free for 1 Year Posted: 24 Aug 2012 01:00 PM PDT When she was shopping for a wedding gown, bride-to-be Kjerstin Gruys realized how she was stressed over her body image. So the 29-year-old PhD student in sociology decided to embark on an experiment of sorts: to go mirror-free for an entire year to boost her self-esteem. In her 20/20 interview, Kjerstin said: "I thought I was going to find a dress that somehow fulfilled every dream, and that I'd enjoy the process of shopping for dresses, I'd feel my most beautiful. I'd find this perfect dress that complimented my body." But instead, Gruys says dress shopping was a source of stress. "I saw myself in the mirror and was being critical," she says. "I thought, Well, maybe I should lose a little weight before the wedding, always a bad thing to focus on when you have a history of an eating disorder.... I wasn't afraid of relapsing into my eating disorder, but I felt like a hypocrite because of how far I'd come." Then Gruys read a passage in the book "Birth of Venus," describing an order of nuns in Renaissance Italy who had severe restrictions against vanity. "They didn't have mirrors in their lives. They were forbidden to look at each other when undressing. They were actually forbidden to look at themselves while they undressed." For the first time in her life, Gruys said she was tempted to follow suit. Kjerstin documented her experience on her blog Mirror, Mirror OFF the Wall: Link - via Oddity Central

Rolling in the Higgs Posted: 24 Aug 2012 12:30 PM PDT (YouTube link) Tim Blais wrote the geekiest-ever lyrics to the tune of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep." It's about CERN's Large Hadron Collider and its mission to find the Higg-Boson subatomic particle. The lyrics are at the YouTube page and in an article about Blais' A Capella Science project at Scientific AmericaN. Link -via Metafilter

World's Most Complex Borders Posted: 24 Aug 2012 12:00 PM PDT Image: Jan S. Krogh National borders are often a touchy subject involving a combustible mix of politics, patriotism and geography. Some borders are complex because of they're based on natural rivers that change course over the period of many years, and some are complex because they're political creations to solve territorial disputes. Take, for example, enclaves and exclaves. These are territories that are entirely surrounded by another. You all already know the most famous example: the Vatican City is an enclave in the city of Rome, Italy. Then, let's take it to the next level: enclaves within enclaves. To say that they're complicated is an understatement. Let's take a quick look at two of the world's most complicated borders: Baarle-Nassau In John's post The Office Building That is Half in Germany, Half in the Netherlands, Neatoramanaut Texticulos pointed us to this complicated border. Image: Tos/Wikipedia The Baarle-Nassau / Baarle-Hertog border is complicated because of medieval treaties, land-swaps, and land sales between the Lords of Breda and the Dukes of Brabant. Today, we have a counter-enclave (an enclave within an enclave): parts of the Netherlands that exist inside Belgium, which is inside the Netherlands. Photo: Jerome/Wikipedia Cooch Behar If you think the Baarle-Nassau border is complicated, that ain't nothing compared to the Cooch Behar border between Bangladesh and India. There are 102 Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh, and 71 Bangladesh enclaves inside of India. There are 28 counter-enclaves and even one counter-counter-enclave (yes, the only "enclave within an enclave within an enclave" in the world). How did Cooch Behar became so complicated? The blame went to two local kings, the Raja of Cooch Behar and his rival, the Faujdar of Rangpur, who used land and villages as stakes in card and chess games. The Economist has a fascinating article on "the land that maps forgot": The people who actually live in enclaves (and counter-enclaves) in a certain sense “don't see” the borders. They speak the same language, eat the same food and live life without regard to the politicians in Dhaka, Kolkata and Delhi. Many of them cross the border regularly (the bribe is US$6 a trip from the Bangladeshi side). A few years ago, away from Cooch Behar, on the eastern border with India, I met a man who lived smack on the border between Tripura state and Bangladesh. His living room was in Bangladesh, his toilet in India. He had been a local politician in India, and was now working as a farmer in Bangladesh. As is typical in such places, he sent his daughters to school in Bangladesh, and his sons to India, where schools, he thought, were much better. To his mind, the fence dividing the two countries was of little value. But, he conceded, “at least my cows don't run away anymore.”

20 Incredible Migrating Monarch Butterfly Pictures Posted: 24 Aug 2012 11:30 AM PDT Each Monarch butterfly is beautiful, but when they swarm by the millions, it's an amazing sight! Learn some facts about these amazing butterflies, and see wonderful photographs at Environmental Graffiti. Link (Image credit: Flickr user John Carrel)

Can Maru Get The Mouse? Posted: 24 Aug 2012 11:00 AM PDT (Video Link) Maru's arch nemesis: a plastic drawer containing his toy mouse. Will he be able to take down his enemy and get his prize? Find out in this episode of Maru: The Box Lover! Via I Can Has Cheezburger

Surgeon Commandeers Pink Bike to Get to Work Posted: 24 Aug 2012 10:30 AM PDT Dr. Catherine Baucom was on her way to the Elliot Mastology Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where a patient was waiting for her to perform surgery on Wednesday morning. But an accident on I-10 created a huge traffic jam in which hundreds of cars were stopped. That's when Baucom took matters into her own hands, creating a scene right out of a Hollywood movie. She recognized the neighborhood, and knew a colleague that lived nearby. "Catherine called, she was outside my house.  She said 'Hey do you have a bike?'  I walked outside and said yea, its a kids bike," said Dr. Brian Barnett.  After a quick test run, Dr. Baucom decided the bike was her only choice to get to the hospital.  "I got the air pump out and aired the tires up as much as I could." He gladly loaned her his seven year old daughter's bike and helmet and the nearly six foot tall surgeon resumed her journey to the surgery center. "It was hot pink and small," Dr. Baucom said, describing the bike.  "The helmet was pink with princesses."  He added he was laughing so much he couldn't get video of her before she peddled away.  "But she did utilize the plastic basket on front, to put her cell phone in.  Showed her experience with the bike." She says she traveled down Tara Boulevard, onto Fairway Drive, crossed Jefferson Highway and over to Essen Lane.  When she reached I10, she was stopped by police.  After explaining the circumstances and where she was headed, she was escorted through to meet her patient. The police couldn't resist taking some video of the doctor. Link -via Fark (Image credit: BRASS Surgery Center)

R.I.P. Muppeteer Jerry Nelson Posted: 24 Aug 2012 10:00 AM PDT Jerry Nelson, one of the original Muppeteers, died last night after a battle with cancer. Nelson was already a professional puppeteer when Jim Henson hired him to fill in while Frank Oz served in the military in the 1960s. Although his Muppet credits are numerous, Nelson was best known as The Count. With the exception of the Count, his characters were never quite as huge as the Kermits or Miss Piggys or Elmos of the world.  But Muppet fans know how many terrific and lovable characters he played — Herry Monster, Biff, Floyd, Dr. Strangepork, Gobo Fraggle, Pa Gorg, the Trash Heap — and Jerry was always the perfect guy for any one-shot character, be it a Whatnot, an Anything Muppet, a monster, a Frackle, or a shoddily constructed ventriloquist’s dummy. I imagine anyone who’s ever gone through the process of ascending from casual Muppet fan to major geek has had the experience of realizing just how many hundreds (thousands?) of characters Jerry played, and being amazed by it. (Just check out the “puppeteer credits” of his Muppet Wiki page for further proof.) Jerry had the most perfect announcer voice a TV series could ask for, and it was put to good use on The Muppet Show, in “Pigs in Space,” “Veterinarian’s Hospital,” “Bear on Patrol,” and even Elmo’s World. Nelson was 78. That's 78. Seventy-eight years old. Link -via reddit

Water Wigs Posted: 24 Aug 2012 09:30 AM PDT Photographer Tim Tadder of Los Angeles, California, sure knows how to make a splash. He's discovered the simple formula for an "exploration into water weirdness" with the use of water balloons. Now, all he needed was a few baldies: Water Wigs is a dynamic set of images using exploding shaped water balloons lit with a triad of colors, to create incredible splashes on the heads of bald men. The result is interesting and arresting "wigs" of water. Enjoy! We most certainly enjoyed that, Tim! Link - via Photojojo

Making Money off Mobile Posted: 24 Aug 2012 09:10 AM PDT As more and more of our time online is spent on our mobile devices, big companies like Facebook and YouTube are finally trying to monetize in the mobile space. I've been working with YouTube since it came out in 2005. You may recall that they never served ads up on the Web before videos for the first year or so. Even when Google bought YouTube, there was still a nice long period before we had to deal with ads. But if YouTube is to survive as a free platform, ads are inevitable, and so, today, I've finally seen my first ad on the mobile device before the video I wanted to watch started playing.  Likewise, Facebook is starting to insert sponsored content into your mobile stream, which I first started noticing yesterday when I updated to their new (very fast and wonderful) iOS app. It's simple to skip past the ads, so they don't bother me too much yet, but if my stream becomes cluttered with these sponsored ads, I think I'd rather them offer a paid product that is ad-free. How do you all feel about these changes? What's the best solution?

Dear Peach Posted: 24 Aug 2012 09:00 AM PDT (YouTube link) It's not easy being second banana. Here, Luigi sings a song to Princess Peach about his feelings of unrequited love in the shadow of his more popular brother. This almost made me tear up until I remembered it's about a video game. -via Geekosystem

Van Gogh's Brushstrokes Reproduced with Blocks of Wood Posted: 24 Aug 2012 08:30 AM PDT Van Gogh is often imitated, but never like this: Korean artist Lee Kyu-Hak wrapped small wooden wedges with colored newsprint and set them on the canvas to mimic the artist's rich and bold brushstrokes. Link - via Pulmonaire

Animal The Muppets EZ-On Romper Posted: 24 Aug 2012 08:00 AM PDT Animal The Muppets EZ-On Romper - $22.95 Halloween is right around the corner. Are you looking for the perfect costume for your wild and crazy little guy? You need the Animal The Muppets EZ-On Romper from the NeatoShop. With this costumer it is a cinch to dress your baby as everyone's favorite muppet drummer.  Miss Piggy The Muppets EZ-On Romper and Gonzo The Muppets EZ-On Romper also available.  Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Halloween items! Link

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