Neatorama

---

• Deep Tea Diver Tea Infuser
• Body Crash: This Car Wreck Is Made of People
• Orchestra of Old Computer Parts Plays Dylan's "The Times, They Are A-Changin'."
• Bizarre Prototype Chain Handgun
• Useless Websites
• A Zoologist's Amazing Origami Animals
• A Little Old Fashion Rote Memorization is Good After All
• George Washington Riding a Pterodactyl Printed on a Dictionary Page
• Bringing Back the Puffins
• Man Turned His Room Into a VW Beetle
• Adventure Kitty
• Oliver Martini Ornament by Patience Brewster
• Automatic Skittles Sorting Machine
• Star Trek Universal Translator Coming to Real Life
• Ice Cream Sliders: Yay Or Yuck?
• Walt Disney's Failures
• Identical Twins Not Genetically Identical
• Handbags Made from Human Hair
• Beer Helmets Fit For Middle Earth
• Bakery Bans Photography
• A New Spin on Teh Tarik
• Polar Bears Are Big Into Halloween
• Hedgehog Phone Holder
• If Wes Anderson Directed Star Wars
• Hippo Transforms into a Bar
• Bill Nye Words of Wisdom
• This Week at Neatorama

Deep Tea Diver Tea Infuser Posted: 11 Nov 2012 05:00 AM PST Deep Tea Diver Tea Infuser - $14.95 Do you know someone who has the heart of a true adventurer? Encourage them to explore new great loose leaf teas with the Deep Tea Diver from the NeatoShop. This delightful tea infuser, shaped like a deep sea diver, is perfect for sinking into cups of hot water.    Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Coffee & Tea items.  Link

Body Crash: This Car Wreck Is Made of People Posted: 11 Nov 2012 05:00 AM PST The South Australian Motor Accident Commission has a message to send to people who disregard the speed limit: vehicle accidents cost lives. To get this point accross, MAC brought in Emma Hack, the artist responsible for Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" video, to design the "Body Crash" billboard ad. It's a little difficult to tell, aside from that one extended arm out there to the left, but this car is actually 17 people lying on and around each other, then painted to look like a wrecked sedan. Here's a close-up: The group of bodybuilders, athletes and acrobats were chosen for their flexibility and fatigue resistance. The whole process from design concept to assembling the models to painting the car is available in video form over at If It's Hip It's Here, along with lots of behind-the-scenes shots. Link

Orchestra of Old Computer Parts Plays Dylan's "The Times, They Are A-Changin'." Posted: 11 Nov 2012 04:00 AM PST (Video Link) These old fax machines, hard drives, printers and modems understand: the times, they are a-changin'. For a Brother commercial, Chris Cairns and his colleagues made them sing the old Bob Dylan song: We found loads of old machines destined for landfill, took them to bits and reverse engineered them to make noises that we could control via MIDI. Badman Will Cohen made an arrangement of Bob Dylan's 'The Times They Are A-Changin' but the orchestra can play any MIDI arrangement, or indeed be performed live. Behind the Scenes Video -via Althouse

Bizarre Prototype Chain Handgun Posted: 11 Nov 2012 03:00 AM PST I'm having trouble finding any information about this fascinating handgun other than that an original Russian caption translated as "7.62mm Pistol prototype. Power tape. Capacity of the tape 36 shots." It looks similar to the Josselyn revolver, an 1866 American design that fed up to 20 rounds kept in individual chambers linked by a chain. Link

Useless Websites Posted: 11 Nov 2012 02:00 AM PST Wanna go to a useless website? How about dozens of them? Just click "please" at the linked index and you'll see a really useless website. There are plenty that might come up, from flash animations that entertain for about ten second like RGB or interactives like Cat Bounce or old favorites like Koalas to the Max. Be prepared to keep clicking for new surprises! One thing all these websites have in common -they're all useless. Link -via I Am Bored

A Zoologist's Amazing Origami Animals Posted: 11 Nov 2012 01:00 AM PST Spawning sockeye salmon For wildlife zoologist Bernie Peyton, animal life inspires not only scientific curiosity but artistic creativity. For decades, he has folded paper to raise awareness about wildlife conservation: "I write a lot of boring [academic] articles nobody reads, but conservation also has to appeal to the emotional side," Peyton told Wired. "That's why I do art." He chose origami because its fragility complements "the ephemeral nature of our world," he said.  Plus, he uses his experience as a field biologist to inform how he molds paper into cacti, bears, kangaroo rats, snakes and polar bears, all of which he's spent considerable time with. "I don't fold anything I don't have a personal experience with," he said. Artist's Gallery and Article -via NotCot

A Little Old Fashion Rote Memorization is Good After All Posted: 11 Nov 2012 12:00 AM PST When she was forced to teach her students Latin and Greek word roots, high school English teacher Suzanne Kail thought that such "drill and kill" method would backfire. (Progressive educators tend to think that rote memorization would surely kill students enthusiasm for learning, hence the term.) But is a little old school learning really that bad? As soon as she began teaching her students the Greek and Latin origins of many English terms — that the root sta means “put in place or stand,” for example, and that cess means “to move or withdraw” — they eagerly began identifying familiar words that incorporated the roots, like “statue” and “recess.” Her three classes competed against each other to come up with the longest list of words derived from the roots they were learning. Kail’s students started using these terms in their writing, and many of them told her that their study of word roots helped them answer questions on the SAT and on Ohio’s state graduation exam. [...] For her part, Kail reports that she no longer sees rote memorization as “inherently evil.” Although committing the word roots to memory was a necessary first step, she notes, “the key was taking that old-school method and encouraging students to use their knowledge to practice higher-level thinking skills.” That’s also true of another old-fashioned method: drilling math facts, like the multiplication table. Although many progressive educators decry what they call “drill and kill” (kill students’ love of learning, that is), rapid mental retrieval of basic facts is a prerequisite for doing more complex, and more interesting, kinds of math. The only way to achieve this “automaticity,” so far as anyone has been able to determine, is to practice. And practice. Indeed, many experts who have observed the wide gap between the math scores of American and Chinese students on international tests attribute the Asian students’ advantage to their schools‘ relentless focus on memorizing math facts. Annie Murphy Paul of TIME has more: Link

George Washington Riding a Pterodactyl Printed on a Dictionary Page Posted: 10 Nov 2012 11:00 PM PST There's a popular historical myth that Washington crossed the Delaware River on boats on his way to attack the Hessians at Trenton on December 26, 1776. Washington's soldiers crossed using boats; Washington himself flew back and forth across the river, scouting the Pennsylvania side and encouraging his men. Link -via Technabob

Bringing Back the Puffins Posted: 10 Nov 2012 10:00 PM PST Atlantic puffins once nested up and down the coast of Maine, but hunting and egg-collecting reduced their numbers to, well, hardly any. Puffins instead nested in Canada. That is, until one guy decided he could bring some of them back to the U.S. In 1969, a young biologist and birding enthusiast named Stephen Kress moved to Maine to teach at the Hog Island Audubon Camp on the coast. He learned that puffins had once been common on the coastal islands but had been hunted relentlessly. By 1901, a single pair was left in the state, and only a few pairs had been seen since. Unlike many people in Maine at the time, Kress had a visceral sense of what had been lost: He had recently worked in eastern Canada, which has some of the largest puffin colonies in the world. He started to wonder if Atlantic puffin chicks could be transplanted from Canada to Maine and used to re-establish the population south of the border. More experienced seabird biologists shook their heads. Puffins, like many seabirds, return to their natal islands to breed. If puffin chicks were transplanted to new islands, they wouldn’t breed there; they would simply head back to the islands where they’d been born. The biologists said Kress’ notion was an idealistic waste of time or, worse, an arrogant effort to manipulate nature. So Kress was not only motivated by a desire to see the puffins return, he also was inspired to prove the experts wrong. It took years of work and changing tactics, but the puffins eventually returned to Maine. Read about how Kress and his colleagues achieved their goal at Slate. Link -via Not Exactly Rocket Science (Image credit: Flickr user Martha de Jong-Lantink)

Man Turned His Room Into a VW Beetle Posted: 10 Nov 2012 09:00 PM PST Jalopnik reader Otto banged his head on his room's slanted ceiling and got an idea: he realized that the angle of the wall looked like the windshield of a car, so he decided to the room into a giant VW Beetle! Take a look over at Jalopnik: Link

Adventure Kitty Posted: 10 Nov 2012 08:00 PM PST In the magical Land of Ooo, long after the Great Mushroom War, Kitty White and her dog rescue princesses from adorable menaces. Brunancio made this cute mashup. His whole gallery is full of similar treats. Artist's Gallery -via Pleated Jeans

Oliver Martini Ornament by Patience Brewster Posted: 10 Nov 2012 07:00 PM PST Oliver Martini Ornament by Patience Brewster - $51.45 Are you looking for a fun way to add a little holiday cheer to your home? Behold the toast worthy Oliver Martini Ornament by Patience Brewster from the NeatoShop. This deliciously fun collectible is part of the 2012 Krinkles Collection. The ornament is handmade and has amazing hand-painted details.  Cosmopolitan Girl Ornament also available.  Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Christmas stuff.  Link

Automatic Skittles Sorting Machine Posted: 10 Nov 2012 07:00 PM PST (YouTube link) Brian Egenriether invented and built a Skittles sorting machine, because he could. It determines the color of each candy and slots it into the appropriate bin. It uses a BASIC Stamp 2 and 3 servos for actuation. An IR LED and phototransistor are used to stop the turnstile in position. I fabricated may of the parts from epoxy including the body, the turnstile, the chute header, etc. The base is wood and the funnel is from a hummingbird feeder. The rest is made from telescope parts and PVC. So you are no longer bound to "taste the rainbow" if you really prefer just the yellow ones. -via Laughing Squid

Star Trek Universal Translator Coming to Real Life Posted: 10 Nov 2012 06:00 PM PST That universal translator you see in Star Trek? Yes, that one that can instantaneously translate languages while being spoken? It's coming to real life, courtesy of Microsoft: Microsoft researchers have demonstrated software that translates spoken English into spoken Chinese almost instantly, while preserving the unique cadence of the speaker's voice—a trick that could make conversation more effective and personal. The first public demonstration was made by Rick Rashid, Microsoft's chief research officer, on October 25 at an event in Tianjin, China. “I'm speaking in English and you'll hear my words in Chinese in my own voice,” Rashid told the audience. The system works by recognizing a person's words, quickly converting the text into properly ordered Chinese sentences, and then handing those over to speech synthesis software that has been trained to replicate the speaker's voice. Link | YouTube clip of the translator in action - via MIT Technology Review

Ice Cream Sliders: Yay Or Yuck? Posted: 10 Nov 2012 05:00 PM PST This is the first sandwich I've seen in a long time that didn't make me sad about the fact that I can't eat gluten any more. I might like cinnamon ice cream and bacon, but putting that on a bun is just one step too far into savory. Link POLL: Would You Eat An Ice Cream Slider? I think I'd rather swallow my own vomit! Yes, but only the corn and spicy cheese crisp. Oh yeah I would! Yes, but only the cinnamon and bacon one.

Walt Disney's Failures Posted: 10 Nov 2012 04:00 PM PST Stephen Schochet compiled a list to illustrate that even very successful people have unexpected setbacks. He listed ten that befell Walt Disney, who learned from his mistakes and went on to great success. Some of those setbacks are hilarious, such as the publicity stunt that backfired big time. For the premiere of Pinocchio Walt hired 11 midgets, dressed them up like the little puppet and put them on top of Radio City Music Hall in New York with a full day's supply of food and wine. The idea was they would wave hello to the little children entering into the theater. By the middle of the hot afternoon, there were 11 drunken naked midgets running around the top of the marquee, screaming obscenities at the crowd below. The most embarrassed people were the police who had to climb up ladders and take the little fellows off in pillowcases. Here's a picture of the event. The story of the premiere of Bambi is funny as well. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

Identical Twins Not Genetically Identical Posted: 10 Nov 2012 03:00 PM PST Photo: Dave Banks/Flickr - via Geeks Are Sexy You'd be forgiven to think that identical twins have the same DNA. After all, that's part of the plot of many crime novels and TV shows. Plus, "identical" means, well, identical. Right? Maybe not. Turns out identical twins are actually not identical at the genetic level: Even though identical twins supposedly share all of their DNA, they acquire hundreds of genetic changes early in development that could set them on different paths, according to new research. The findings, presented Friday (Nov. 9) here at the American Society of Human Genetics meeting, may partly explain why one twin gets cancer while another stays healthy. The study also suggests that these genetic changes are surprisingly common. "It's not as rare as people previously expected," said study presenter Rui Li, an epidemiologist at McGill University. LiveScience has more: Link

Handbags Made from Human Hair Posted: 10 Nov 2012 02:00 PM PST Do you want a purse that sheds? Fashion designer Taeseok Kang has got the perfect handbag for you. Each one is made with a hefty amount of real human hair. Link | Artist's Website (content warning: artistic nudity)

Beer Helmets Fit For Middle Earth Posted: 10 Nov 2012 01:00 PM PST Beer helmets are usually so darn tacky, but with this great Gimli-inspired beer helmet, you can drink like a real dwarf in style. Best of all, you can actually create your own thanks to Instructables. Link Via io9

Bakery Bans Photography Posted: 10 Nov 2012 12:00 PM PST A reader wrote to Jen at Cake Wrecks that the bakery at her local supermarket has a new policy prohibiting photography. She heard that it was because the management was afraid the cakes would show up on "that bad cake site." In fact, store employees said it was because their cake designs were copyrighted. That does seem like a logical response; far more logical than hiring professionals or training cake decorators. Of course this bakery isn't the only chain to ban photos; fact is, most stores now have similar rules. I hear from readers every week who are harassed, shooed away, and even outright kicked out of stores for whipping out their cellphones in the bakery. Now, far be it from me to criticize rules (even ones I find really, REALLY stupid) but I don't see how harassing your own customers  - and ones who often buy your wrecks because Cake Wrecks has made them a world-wide inside joke - is good for business. Then again, I also thought it would make more sense to train your bakers not to make wrecks instead of trying to prevent people from seeing them, so what do I know? There are more photographic examples in the post at Cake Wrecks. Link

A New Spin on Teh Tarik Posted: 10 Nov 2012 11:00 AM PST In Teh tarik ("pulled tea"), black tea and milk are mixed not with a spoon, but with showmanship. Take a look at this man doing teh tarik in Chatuchak Weekend Market in Bangkok, Thailand.

Polar Bears Are Big Into Halloween Posted: 10 Nov 2012 10:00 AM PST People tend to assume that because polar bears live up north mean that their favorite holiday is Christmas, but that's just speciest. If you really get to know them, you'll find out that most polar bears prefer Halloween. Here's one really getting into the holiday spirit with a fun witch statue. Link

Hedgehog Phone Holder Posted: 10 Nov 2012 09:00 AM PST Hedgehod Phone Holder - $9.95 Do you have trouble keep track of your cell phone? You need the Hedgehog Phone Holder from the NeatoShop. This adorable plush doubles as a phone stand for your favorite smartphone. It has a fabric lined pocket and super soft fur.  Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Mobile Phone & Tablet Gadgets.  Link

If Wes Anderson Directed Star Wars Posted: 10 Nov 2012 09:00 AM PST Zeon posted about various director's audition tapes for Star Wars earlier this week, but this one "by" Wes Anderson is perfect! Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - Thanks Diana!

Hippo Transforms into a Bar Posted: 10 Nov 2012 08:00 AM PST During his life, French sculptor François-Xavier Lalanne (1927-2008) made several metal hippopatamus figures with built-in compartments. This glorious bronze specimen opens to reveal a bar. It was typical of Lalanne's playful approach to art: He wanted, he once said, to bring the notion of usefulness to sculpture and to demystify art, which he regarded as a funhouse rather than a cathedral. Obituary -via Wunderkammer | Photo: Claiborne Swanson Frank/Vogue

Bill Nye Words of Wisdom Posted: 10 Nov 2012 07:00 AM PST Old Billy (sic) Nye is filled with all sorts of wisdom. Remember that great video he was in about Creationism? Yeah, he is awesome like that. I will tell you growing up I loved his show and I still do love science - I was Biology major through a large part of college. I will also tell you that Bill Nye is the only celebrity I am aware of that shares my birthday. Who knows the date? Don't cheat and Google it! Hint - it is just around the corner.. -Via Explore

This Week at Neatorama Posted: 10 Nov 2012 06:00 AM PST Is it November 10th already? Tomorrow is Veterans Day, Remembrance Day, or Armistice Day, depending on where you live. Whichever you call it, it's a day to recognize this who have served their country in times of war, a date chosen because the first "war to end all wars" ended on November 11, 1918. There may be some public observances in your area, and I'll include a Veterans Day reading list at the end of this post. Junst in case you've missed any of our exclusive features from the past week, we'll make it easy for you to catch up. Eddie Deezen gave us The Only Mother and Son to Each Have #1 Records and 12 Things You Might Not Know About Wyatt Earp. “Toll House” Recipe Cookies Do Not Maintain Their Morphology Under Heat Stress Conditions came from the Annals of Improbable Research. Mental_floss magazine contributed America! Meet Your Puppet Master, subtitled How Eddie Bernays got you to buy books, wear hairnets, and eat bacon for breakfast. We learned about the about the man who inspired the character of Ebenezer Scrooge in the post The Real Scrooge, from the newest edition of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. We also gave away five copies of the book, Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader, courtesy of the very un-miserly folks at the Bathroom Reader Institute. Congratulations to the winners, JoJofries, rccola20, Hannah Creque, James Race, and Kevin Beeson! In the What Is It? game this week, the pictured object is a vintage brass trigger guard for a gun. The first comment, from Anker, had the correct answer, which is good for a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! The funniest answer came from The Professor, who gave an explanation of how to "point Percy at the Porcelain," which may be a little racy for delicate sensibilities, so you can go read it for yourself, and maybe even give it a ♥. So he wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop as well! Find the answers to all this week's mystery items at the What Is It? blog. The Neatoramanauts Facebook page achieved a milestone this week when it hit 25,000 "likes"! Check the post annoucing that achievement for updated information on Facebook changes that may affect your feed. Many thanks to David Israel for his work at all the social networking sites, keeping Neatorama updated at Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Flipboard as well as Facebook! Not counting the giveaways, the posts that were most-commented-on this week was a three-way tie between I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Turkish Ice Cream, 12 Things You Might Not Know About Wyatt Earp, and Can Sex Help Sell Coffins? Feel free to jump right in to those discussions, or at any post! Veterans Day Reading The Lost Battalion Doolittle's Raid Five for Fighting Saving Sergeant Niland The Past, Present, and Future of Being Called to Duty Top Ten U.S. Generals Building the Wall A Video of the Last Veteran of the American Civil War The Funeral for the Last American Veteran of the War of 1812

You are subscribed to email updates from Neatorama To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610