Neatorama

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• Snake Sweater
• How Well Do You Know Your U.S. Presidents?
• SeaWorld Harlem Shake
• Bird Duet Salt & Pepper Shakers
• Zombie Posters by Matt Busch
• Danger Dogs of Nepal
• Camera Resolution Charts for Aerial Photography
• Applejack Automaton
• How to Deal with Internet Trolls
• Hidden Log Drawers
• The Physics of Sunsets
• Doctor Who Watch
• Adidas Pop Up Store Looks Like a Giant Shoebox
• Feeding the Groundhog
• The Throne of Nerds
• USA Map Made Out of 50,000 Matchsticks
• Brothers Celebrate Lottery Win by Blowing Up House
• I Survived The Russian Meteor
• Russian Troops Marching to the <i>SpongeBob SquarePants</i> Theme
• And Another Bottle Opener
• Super-Batman!
• Tank Altar
• Plane Crash POV
• Tuxedo Strawberries
• Mosh Pit Physics
• Armless Steampunk Baby Mannequin Desk Lamp

Snake Sweater Posted: 18 Feb 2013 04:00 AM PST Milky Joe is one lucky snake. His human, Stephanie Christine Davidson, wants to make sure that he doesn't freeze during the winter. This sweater will keep him both warm and fashionable. You can watch a video at the link. Link -via Passing Fancies

How Well Do You Know Your U.S. Presidents? Posted: 18 Feb 2013 03:00 AM PST Challenge yourself with a quiz on U.S. presidential trivia for Presidents Day at Buzzfeed. You may do quite well, considering how much trivia we've given you here at Neatorama! I scored 12 out of 16. How did you do? Link

SeaWorld Harlem Shake Posted: 18 Feb 2013 02:00 AM PST (YouTube link) I've watched dozens of Harlem Shake videos in the last few days, from TV show casts, military units, and even one done underwater. I keep rejecting them because the meme is burning up faster than Gangnam Style, and it would be easy to overdo it. However, this video from SeaWorld in San Antonio, Texas, has something special the rest of them don't. -via reddit

Bird Duet Salt & Pepper Shakers Posted: 18 Feb 2013 01:00 AM PST Bird Duet Salt & Pepper Shakers Do you have the winter blues? Add a little bit of spring to your table with the Bird Duet Salt & Pepper Shakers from the NeatoShop. This beautiful hand blown glass set is both elegant and functional. It makes a sweet tweet for any bird lover. Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Salt & Pepper Shakers. Link

Zombie Posters by Matt Busch Posted: 18 Feb 2013 01:00 AM PST Alice From Underland If you need to liven up your wall, the undead may be the perfect choice. Proving that you can't go wrong with zombies are these marvelous zombie movie parody posters by illustrator Matt Busch over at the NeatoShop. Link: Zombie Posters by Matt Busch Lord of the Rotten: The Return from the Crypt Zombie Wars - A New Epidemic Fight of the Living Dead Club Indiana Bones 4 E.T. - The Extra-Terrorestrial Bleak is the Future Deadward Scissorhands Gnaws Toy Gory View more Zombie posters by Matt Busch over at the NeatoShop: Link

Danger Dogs of Nepal Posted: 18 Feb 2013 12:00 AM PST Got a killer chihuahua? The Danger Dog sign from Nepal is fair warning for visitors, be they friends or enemies. The Before and After, featuring Russell the Chihuahua by Nepalese artists Baba, Dilip, and Megh Raj Michelle Page was in Kathmandu, Nepal, when she spotted charming handpainted "Beware of Dog" signs adorning gates of homes there. She tracked down the signboard artists and got them to draw custom signs featuring your fearsome pets (yes, even cats, chickens, and ferrets as you can see below). Check out the official Nepal Art Dogs website: Link - via Animal NY

Camera Resolution Charts for Aerial Photography Posted: 17 Feb 2013 11:00 PM PST Camera resolution charts are like eye charts for cameras. They are used to calibrate and focus the instruments. Cameras on airplanes need to be calibrated, too -and the charts for them are there, larger than life, to be used by spy planes and drones, and even by satellites.   The largest concentration of calibration targets in one place is on the grounds of Edwards Air Force Base, in an area referred to as the photo resolution range, where 15 calibration targets run for 20 miles across the southeast side of the base in a line, so multiple targets can be photographed in one pass. There is some variation in the size and shape of the targets at Edwards, suggesting updates and modifications for specific programs. A number of the targets there also have aircraft hulks next to them, added to provide additional, realistic subjects for testing cameras. Some of these planes are themselves unusual and rare military jets, officially in the collection of the base museum, despite being left out on the range. There are an unknown number of other isolated photo calibration targets across the country, mostly inside restricted groundspace at military areas, such as at Eglin AFB, Florida; the Nevada Test Site; around Walker Field, a Navy drone airport in Maryland; and an especially exotic one at Fort Huachuca, in Arizona. Several others are painted on existing taxiways and runways, such as at Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio; Travis AFB, California; Beaufort Marine Corps Base and Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina. Google Earth gives us a view of some of these charts, which you can see at the Center for Land Use Interpretation. They strangely remind one of crop circles, even though they involve neither crops not circles. Link  -via PetaPixel

Applejack Automaton Posted: 17 Feb 2013 10:00 PM PST Renegadecow makes excellent My Little Pony automata, including Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy and Rarity. His most recent mechanical wonder shows Applejack bucking apples off a tree while almost knocking off her hat. Applejack's dog Winona watches the action from inside the gearbox while wagging her tail and cocking her head. Click on Continue reading to watch a video of the automaton in action. Link (Video Link)

How to Deal with Internet Trolls Posted: 17 Feb 2013 09:00 PM PST (YouTube link) British MMA fighter James "The Colossus" Thompson has a surefire technique for neutralizing internet trolls. It's not what you might guess. Contains NSFW language. For added humor, I am told that the automated YouTube captions are hilarious, as the bot apparently has a problem with British accents. -via Metafilter

Hidden Log Drawers Posted: 17 Feb 2013 08:00 PM PST Mark Moskovitz's "Facecord" cabinet looks like a woodpile, but contains three carefully concealed drawers in the front. It's his contribution to Against the Grain, an exhibit at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina that examines unusual uses of wood by artists. Link | Exhibition Website | Artist's Website

The Physics of Sunsets Posted: 17 Feb 2013 07:00 PM PST …the beauty of a sunset, in all of its varieties and variations, is only enhanced the more you know about it. Sunsets grab our eyes and our interest. They change colors, dominate the horizon, and sometimes we even see a flash of green or blue, if we're lucky. Sunsets even come with their own optical illusions. Cosmologist Ethan Siegel explains why sunsets are so magical. You may not even realize it, but by time you’d see a sunset like the picture above, the Sun has already technically set, it’s only due to the fact that the atmosphere bends light that we’re still seeing it like this. This is why, if you time a sunset, it will take longer than the expected 120 seconds to go from the moment it touches the horizon to the moment it dips below, even during the equinox at the equator, where it rises and sets as close to completely vertical to the horizon as possible. The Sun appears to linger due to the refraction of our atmosphere. The explanations of this and other sunset phenomena comes with some awesome pictures at Starts With A Bang. Link (Image credit: R Nave of Hyperphysics)

Doctor Who Watch Posted: 17 Feb 2013 06:00 PM PST Doctor Who Watch  Attention Doctor Who fans! Are you looking for a great way to make sure you on are time to watch your favorite television show? You need the Doctor Who Watch from the NeatoShop. This brilliant watch features a TARDIS revolving around the time vortex.  The TARDIS makes one revolution every minute. This watch makes a wonderful gift for any Doctor Who lover.  Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Doctor Who items.  Link

Adidas Pop Up Store Looks Like a Giant Shoebox Posted: 17 Feb 2013 06:00 PM PST Pop up stores are all the rage now, but Adidas took it a step further with theirs. At the 2011 Primavera music festival in Barcelona, Spain, the company created an installation that looked like a giant Adidas shoe box! Link - via Design Dautore

Feeding the Groundhog Posted: 17 Feb 2013 05:00 PM PST (YouTube link) You get the feeling this is a regular lunch stop for the groundhog. He doesn't look like he's missed too many meals! What sold me on this video is the part where he tries to jump in the guy's lap, misses, and looks around to see if anyone witnessed his faux pas. -via Say OMG

The Throne of Nerds Posted: 17 Feb 2013 04:00 PM PST The Iron Throne from Game of Thrones is a chair of welded swords that has cut and even killed the people who craved to sit upon it. Mike DeWolfe, a computer programmer from Canada, made the Throne of Nerds by wrapping a chair with old computer keyboards: The keyboard warping includes the scorching of almost all of the ESC keys to symbolize how impossible it can be escape suffering and blackness. The only key that is consciously left undamaged is the ESC key on the highest positioned keyboard. Around the back, the keyboard cables have been arranged like human hair with an attempt to braid the cables that is ultimately left in a tangle. This denotes how good plans and order can degenerate into chaos.  Link -via Ian Brooks

USA Map Made Out of 50,000 Matchsticks Posted: 17 Feb 2013 03:00 PM PST Photo: Dan Kvitka. Courtesy of Portland Institute for Contemporary Art/Flickr In her artwork America (Burnt/Unburnt), French artist Claire Fontaine created a map of the United States out of 50,000 matches ... and then set it on fire! In 2011, Fontaine created the (unlit) artwork for the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, as part of its 2011 Time-Based Art Festival: Last month, Fontaine's America Burnt/Unburnt artwork installation at the Queen's Nail in San Francisco, was taken a step further: the matches were lit ... but everyone who watched the USA set on fire got a bit more than they bargained for as the artwork set the gallery on fire! Someone who attended the show told the Bernalwood blog: I was at the gallery when the fire broke out. It was slow-going to attach 50,000 matches, and the show had already been pushed to opening Wednesday night instead of its original date of this past Saturday. I arrived just as the first matches were being lit. There was a hose ready in the gallery and fire extinguishers around in case things got out of control– I remember feeling relieved to see that. Everyone had their iPhones and camcorders out to document the slow burn of the piece. At first, when the map was lit on fire (intentionally), it burnt slowly and was rather gorgeous. However, within about 15 seconds of burning, something went wrong and the flame began to surge out of control. We were not sure if it was part of the art piece… however, soon the smoke was billowing over the entire crowd and the sulphur was so hot and thick that it hurt the lungs. Someone yelled “EVERYONE OUT!!!” and the small crowd stumbled out the front door on Mission Street. The smoke was so thick and yellow that one couldn’t see. Todd Lappin of Telstar Logistics has the "after" photo showing damage to the art gallery: Links: PICA TBA:11 ON SIGHT artwork on Flickr - via Colossal | Bernalwood blog - via Hyperallergic

Brothers Celebrate Lottery Win by Blowing Up House Posted: 17 Feb 2013 02:00 PM PST Two unnamed brothers in Wichita, Kansas, won $75,000 in the lottery. They purchased marijuana and meth to celebrate their good fortune. The brothers were in a house in the 100 block of North Nevada Court, near Douglas and West Street, about 7 p.m. Friday, Watts said. One of the brothers went to the kitchen to refuel the butane torches they planned to use to light their bongs. He emptied a couple of large cans of butane lighter fluid, leaking butane into the air. “The butane vapor reached the pilot light in the furnace, and as you might expect, ka-boom,” Watts said. The victim was wearing a lottery T-shirt during the explosion. The injured brother was taken to a hospital where his girlfriend dropped him off and left. Police arrested the other brother at the site of the explosion. Link -via Fark (Image credit: Flickr user jnyemb)

I Survived The Russian Meteor Posted: 17 Feb 2013 01:00 PM PST I Survived The Russian Meteor Celebrate your survival from the latest cosmic-based apocalypse (take that, space pebble!) with this clever T-shirt design by Chris Murphy. Remember: In Russia, Space Explores YOU! Link: I Survived The Russian Meteor Previously from the NeatoShop: I Survived The Mayan Apocalypse | I Survived the Large Hadron Collider

Russian Troops Marching to the <i>SpongeBob SquarePants</i> Theme Posted: 17 Feb 2013 12:00 PM PST (Video Link) Oh, no, it's not just one platoon marching on one occasion while chanting out the theme song of SpongeBob SquarePants. As you can see from this compilation video, it's a really popular marching song in the Russian military. Bikini Bottom is now well defended.  -via Yababoon

And Another Bottle Opener Posted: 17 Feb 2013 11:00 AM PST And Another Bottle Opener All hail the ampersand. This fantastic logogram represents the wonderful word "and." Now you can pay homage to this meaningful symbol of unity with the And Another Bottle Opener from the NeatoShop. And the best part? The And Another Bottle Opener is functional & fun.  Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Barware & Cocktail items.  Link

Super-Batman! Posted: 17 Feb 2013 11:00 AM PST This shirt was spotted at a mall in India. The small print says "Man behind brief and mask!!" Yes, I know you want one, but DC Comics would never authorize this because they'd just as soon see you buy two shirts. Link

Tank Altar Posted: 17 Feb 2013 10:00 AM PST This moving photo was taken on 24 June 1944, one week into the three week battle to capture the island of Saipan. The caption provided by the Marine Corps Archives reads: Navy Chaplain O. David Herrmann, of Omaha, Neb., attached to a Marine unit on Saipan, uses a destroyed Japanese tank for an altar as he holds services for the dead. Link -via Retronaut

Plane Crash POV Posted: 17 Feb 2013 09:00 AM PST (YouTube link) This is probably the only time you'll see a video of a plane crash narrated by a passenger here, but in this instance no one was injured, aside from bumps and bruises. How tragic it would have been for the guy to record "I'm not worried" and "I know we'll be just fine" if the flight had ended like you'd expect a crash to end! This was uploaded yesterday, and there is no information about where it happened. -via Daily of the Day Update: The crash happened on February 2nd in Wellsville, Utah. Thanks to Neatoramanaut Sean Turvey, I found a story on it. Jonathan and Kara Fielding were aboard a family's friend plane Saturday afternoon, marking Kara's birthday, along with their seven-month-old baby and Kara's mother. It was Kara's first trip on an airplane. Jonathan documented the trip on video as the plane cleared the Wellsville Mountains, and shared his experience with CBS Affiliate KUTV. "We are just over the top of the overpass," he narrated. "We are told that there's carburetor ice, so this is kind of exciting. I'm not worried. I think we're going to be just fine." Link

Tuxedo Strawberries Posted: 17 Feb 2013 08:00 AM PST This strawberry has already taken off his bow tie, but otherwise he's perfectly dressed for a formal occasion. Laura decorated strawberries for Valentine's Day. She coated a few with chocolate tuxedos. Link -via Tasteologie

Mosh Pit Physics Posted: 17 Feb 2013 07:00 AM PST Cornell graduate student Jesse Silverberg observed mosh pit activity at a heavy metal concert, and was inspired to study the movements of the dancers. Those movements turned out to be a lot like how gas particles move.   To investigate, the team simulated a mosh pit with a few basic rules: the virtual moshers bounce off each other when they collide (instead of sticking or sliding through each other); they can move independently; and they can flock, or follow each other, to varying degrees. Finally, the team added a certain amount of statistical noise to the simulated moshers' movements – "to mimic the effects of the inebriants that the participants typically use", says co-author Matthew Bierbaum. They found that by tweaking their model parameters – decreasing noise or increasing the tendency to flock, for instance – they could make the pit shift between the random-gas-like moshing and a circular vortex called a circle pit, which is exactly what they saw in the YouTube videos of real mosh pits. Their simulation is available online. "These are collective behaviours that you wouldn't have predicted based on the previous literature on collective motion in humans," Silverberg says. "That work was geared at pedestrians, but what we're seeing is fundamentally different." "The fact that human beings are very complex creatures, and yet we can develop a lifeless computer simulation that mimics their behaviour, really tells us that we're understanding something new about the behaviour of crowds that we didn't understand before," says co-author James Sethna. Read more about the research at New Scientist. Link -via Dangerous Minds, where you can see a video of mosh pit dancers acting like gas.

Armless Steampunk Baby Mannequin Desk Lamp Posted: 17 Feb 2013 06:00 AM PST Why a baby? Paul McCue doesn't say why, but I suspect it's to give this lamp a homey feel appropriate for a nursery or an elementary school classroom. His lamp is made from a toddler-sized mannequin and stands 17 inches tall. Link -via Awesome Etsy | Artist's Website

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