Neatorama

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• Harlem Shake in 2015
• Official US Marine Corps Dog Begins Recruit Training
• Pastafarian Denied Religious Headwear in New Jersey
• Duct Tape Landscape
• Solar Dancing Bunny
• A Puma Firing a Cannon
• Farts on a Plane
• Chart: Parenting over Time
• Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima
• The Best Bus Stop Ever!
• The Magic Carpet
• The Evolution of Mom Dancing With Jimmy Fallon and Michelle Obama
• Days of the Week Sticky Notes
• Letter from the Tooth Fairy
• The Town that was Submerged for 25 Years
• Knitted Stop Sign Flower
• Performance-enhancing Drugs for Writers
• Missing Backpacker Survived on Contact Lens Fluid
• Tattoo Artists Wanted
• Pac-Man Chairs
• Googly Eye Push Pins
• I Can't Believe These Are All TV Shows
• Hobbit Hole Bonsai Tree
• This Week at Neatorama

Harlem Shake in 2015 Posted: 24 Feb 2013 04:00 AM PST (YouTube link) Yeah, the Harlem Shake in LEGO might be a neat thing to watch! From the team at Bold Choice, here's a lesson in what can happen when you spend too much time and effort on your video projects in the era of 15-minute memes. -via The Daily What

Official US Marine Corps Dog Begins Recruit Training Posted: 24 Feb 2013 02:00 AM PST Since 1922, the official mascot of the US Marine Corps has been an English bulldog. Marion F. Sturkey writes: At the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, the Marines obtained a registered English Bulldog, King Bulwark. In a formal ceremony on 14 October 1922, Brig. Gen. Smedley D. Butler signed documents enlisting the bulldog, renamed Jiggs, for the ‘term of life.’ Pvt. Jiggs then began his official duties in the U.S. Marine Corps. In recent decades, the mascot has been named "Chesty" after the legendary Marine Corps General Chesty Puller. After the retirement of the most recent Chesty, a 9-week old old English bulldog puppy was invited to enlist. He did so and is currently in recruit training. Jennifer Harper of the Washington Times writes: The handsome and distinguished young Chesty will enter obedience school and canine “recruit training,” earn the title of Marine and be named the next Marine Corps mascot on March 29. His official duties include marching in myriad events, including the Friday twilight parades at the facility, looking tough but buff in his own custom dress blues. Link -via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: US Marine Corps

Pastafarian Denied Religious Headwear in New Jersey Posted: 24 Feb 2013 12:00 AM PST A couple of years ago, we told you about a Pastafarian from Austria who convinced his government to let him wear a collander hat on religious grounds for his driver's license. Well, no such luck with New Jersey: Having never heard of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, workers at a New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission office refused to allow Aaron Williams’ to wear a pasta strainer on his head while having his drivers’ license photo taken on Feb. 2. The colander, according to Williams, is a religious symbol for his satirical church. South Brunswick police arrived at the MVC facility on Route 130 in Dayton and told Williams that the pasta strainer was not on a list of approved religious headwear. “Had it been a turban or a headscarf, or something from a mainstream religion, then it would’ve been fine,” Williams, 24, told New Brunswick Patch. “I guess since they hadn’t heard of the religion, that’s why they opposed it. But that’s not really acceptable to me. They’re not in a position to discriminate against religions that are mainstream, or not mainstream, just because they may not have heard about it.” David Knowles of the NY Daily News reports: Link

Duct Tape Landscape Posted: 23 Feb 2013 11:00 PM PST Whether he's got toothbrush bristles, bath towels or duct tape, Takahiro Iwasaki can build a landscape out of it. This detailed, delicately carved roll of duct tape is my favorite. You can view more examples of his work at the link. Link

Solar Dancing Bunny Posted: 23 Feb 2013 10:00 PM PST Solar Dancing Bunny Do you have a bad case of the winter blues? Add a little sunshine and happiness to your dark and dreary desk with the Solar Dancing Bunny from the NeatoShop. This cute little bunny is sure to help you get back that spring in your step.  Solar Dancing Ducky also available. Buy both and make your cubicle the life of the party.  Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Office & Desk stuff.  Link

A Puma Firing a Cannon Posted: 23 Feb 2013 10:00 PM PST Well, that's what the caption says, but it doesn't look like any puma I've ever seen. This picture is supposedly from 1935 Russia. The cat looks more like a jaguar, but aren't they deadly enough without firearms? Redditor Ayatrolla gives the caption of the photo as he found it. Puma Calls For Food By Firing A Cannon Though most animals are gun-shy, a wild puma kept at a laboratory in Moscow, Russia, deliberately fires a cannon to signify that it is hungry. Laboratory workers trained the animal, in accordance with the theories of Dr. Ivan Pavlov, noted physiologist, by firing the piece and giving the puma a piece of meat after each shot. Soon it overcame its natural dislike for the sound and learned to get its meals by climbing upon a platform and pulling the firing cord. Looks more like a circus act to me. What do you think? Link

Farts on a Plane Posted: 23 Feb 2013 09:00 PM PST Farts on a plane is like snake on a plane, but far more dangerous. The eternal questions of why flying makes you fart and whether should you hold it in or let 'er rip has finally been answered by science: Lead author Dr. Jacob Rosenberg, professor of surgery at the University of Copenhagen, said he always wondered why he had more flatulence flying than when on the ground. Then, after a recent trip, he opened his bag and noticed a water bottle "almost smashed by the change in ambient pressure," said Rosenberg. "And then I thought of the mechanisms of increased bowel air volume when flying." It's simple. When altitude increases, pressure decreases. According to the thermodynamic principal known as the "ideal gas law," as pressure drops, volume increases. While cabins are pressurized to compensate, the mechanisms can only do so much. When the plane is at a cruising altitude of 33,000 feet, inside it's still the equivalent of 8,000 feet above sea level. That's a lot of physics bearing down on your intestines. There's a clear medical rationale for releasing the gas. Holding back flatulence can lead to "discomfort and even pain, bloating, dyspepsia and pyrosis," according to the article, titled "Flatulence on Airplanes: Just Let it Go," which surveyed previously published research and studies. It also notes that holding back flatulence has been suggested as a major risk factor for diverticular disease, a condition where pouches develop in the wall of the colon. Go ahead and fart, but just don't sit next to me on the airplane: Link - Thanks Tiff! Image: I'm Not A Cloud - I'm a Fart T-Shirt from the NeatoShop

Chart: Parenting over Time Posted: 23 Feb 2013 08:00 PM PST Jorge Cham of PHD Comics charts an essential truth: parenting is a long period of anxiety punctuated by moments of sheer terror or joy. When it's all over, which will you remember the most easily? Link -via Joe Carter

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima Posted: 23 Feb 2013 07:00 PM PST The iconic photograph of Marines raising the flag on the island of Iwo Jima was taken on January 23rd, 1945 -68 years ago today. Since then, the image by Joe Rosenthal has been used in so many ways, from stamps to album covers to the cake you see here by Cake Central. The imagery has also been parodied in a variety of ways, to "raise the flag" for many different causes. See an extensive selection of those homages and parodies at the U.S. Naval Institute blog. Link (Image credit: Cake Central)

The Best Bus Stop Ever! Posted: 23 Feb 2013 06:00 PM PST The ads on the bus stop says "In a Hurry?", "Bored?", "Seen It All?" with a link to a website for Qualcomm's Born Mobile. And when bus riders visit that webpage, the magic happens. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]

The Magic Carpet Posted: 23 Feb 2013 05:00 PM PST These kids can enjoy a flying carpet ride high over Bettona, Italy, thanks to the amazing work of Kurt Wenner. You may remember his 3D depiction of Spider-Man rendered on pavement. You can see even more at his site, but be warned: you'll spend an hour there looking through his whole gallery. Artist's Website -via Global Street Art

The Evolution of Mom Dancing With Jimmy Fallon and Michelle Obama Posted: 23 Feb 2013 04:00 PM PST First Lady Michelle Obama is not afraid to get her groove for a good cause.  She recently visited the set of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to promote her "Let's Move" campaign to end childhood obesity. The result is a hilarious segement titled, "The Evolution of Mom Dancing."   It includes great dance moves like:  Go Shopping, Get Groceries The Where's Your Father? (Get Him back here!) and The Driving The Station Wagon As an American I am proud to say, "My first lady can dance better than your first lady! Nanner! Nanner! Nanner!" Hit play or go to Link [Flash video/self-starting]

Days of the Week Sticky Notes Posted: 23 Feb 2013 03:00 PM PST Days of the Week Sticky Notes  Do you wish you could live out your days in organized bliss? Now you can march one step closer to that goal with the Days of the Week Sticky Notes from the NeatoShop. This wonderful packet includes 6 efficient sticky note pads, one for each workday (plus the weekend). Each sticky note pad includes 40 sheets for your precise writing pleasure.    Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Stationery.  Link

Letter from the Tooth Fairy Posted: 23 Feb 2013 03:00 PM PST The Tooth Fairy tried to get the tooth. But Emily's room was a mess, especially the bed. It was covered with toys, blankets and Emily's sister. So she left a note saying that she would come back if Emily cleaned up and made the tooth accessible. Amy, Emily's mom, reports that the child responded favorably and it's likely that the Tooth Fairy will return. Link -via GeekDad

The Town that was Submerged for 25 Years Posted: 23 Feb 2013 02:00 PM PST Southwest of Buenos Aires, Argentina, lies a salt lake called Lago Epecuen. Like many mineral springs, a spa industry grew up and and the nearby village boomed into a thriving community called Villa Epecuen. The town’s population peaked in the 1970s with more than 5,000. Nearly 300 businesses thrived, including hotels, hostels, spas, shops, and museums. Around the same time, a long-term weather event was delivering far more rain than usual to the surrounding hills for years, and Lago Epecuen began to swell. On 10 November 1985 the enormous volume of water broke through the rock and earth dam and inundated much of the town under four feet of water. By 1993, the slow-growing flood consumed the town until it was covered in 10 meters of water. Nearly 25 years later, in 2009, the wet weather reversed and the waters began to recede. Villa Epecuen started coming back to the surface. What emerged from the water looks like a post-apocalyptic movie set. The streets and blocks are there, and buildings, furniture, and carefully-planted trees are quite visible, even in their wrecked condition. See lots of pictures at Amusing Planet. Link -via mental_floss (Image credit: Wikimedia Commons contributor Santiago Matamoro)

Knitted Stop Sign Flower Posted: 23 Feb 2013 01:00 PM PST Bryan, the "Knitting Guy", is a mad yarn bomber who turns stop signs in Clairemont, California into flowers. He's planted, er, crafted at least a hundred of them and has an interactive map at this site so that you can visit them. Last year, Enrique Limon of San Diego City Beat accompanied Bryan on one of his covert missions: Guiding his buddy as he sewed up the stockinette-stitched sleeve along the stop-sign rod, he recounted the tale of his first stop-sign flower: “I put it up in the middle of the night—it must have been 11:30 or midnight. I wanted to make sure no one saw me doing it, and then chuckled all the way home and waited to see people’s reactions.” He figured that if it lasted three days, the $10 he spent on yarn would have been worth it. Fourteen months later, it’s still there. A few more quickly followed. “I find it lightens people’s mood,” he said, adding that, recently, when he went back to do some maintenance work on that first flower, someone had already rewired its leaves. Official Site and News Story -via Makin'ology

Performance-enhancing Drugs for Writers Posted: 23 Feb 2013 12:00 PM PST Grant Snider of Incidental Comics gives us not only a comic but a poem within it. I don't advocate drug use - unless it leads to great works of literature. Link  -via Laughing Squid

Missing Backpacker Survived on Contact Lens Fluid Posted: 23 Feb 2013 11:00 AM PST Samuel Woodhead, 18, went for a run in Australia's Outback. He was missing for thee days. If it wasn't for the contact lens fluid accidentally left in his backpack, he would have died of thirst before rescuers found him: The teenager was said to be a little sunburned following his ordeal, but was hydrated and otherwise well. His relieved mother Claire, 54, described how her son survived in the 40C heat. "His father had packed boxes of contact lenses in his rucksack in an outside pocket and he'd forgotten to take them out," she revealed. "He's lived on the fluid that the contact lenses ... you know the little packs of contact lenses? He's literally lived on those packs of contact lenses for three nights." Link -via Glenn Reynolds | Photo: Lenore Marie

Tattoo Artists Wanted Posted: 23 Feb 2013 10:00 AM PST Berrge Tattoo in Istanbul, Turkey, has a clever job application process that weeds out totally incompetent tattoo artists right away. You can only access the application process by using a QR code, but you'll have to fill in the ink yourself to make the code legible to your device. Either that, or it's just a great ad for the parlor itself. -via 22 Words

Pac-Man Chairs Posted: 23 Feb 2013 09:00 AM PST Want to feel like a pac-dot on the verge of being devoured? Portuguese designer Bruno Marques has the right chair for you. His polypropylene chair design looks like that great icon of the early 80s. Link -via Nerd Bastards

Googly Eye Push Pins Posted: 23 Feb 2013 08:00 AM PST Googly Eye Push Pins Do you wish you could always keep an eye on the things that matter to you? Now you can with the Googly Eye Push Pins from the NeatoShop. This eye catching set includes 25 googly eye push pins.   Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more eye opening Office Supplies.  Link

I Can't Believe These Are All TV Shows Posted: 23 Feb 2013 08:00 AM PST (Funny or Die link) Someone once theorized that new "reality" TV shows are created by pulling words out of hats, one word from the adjective hat and one from the noun hat. That's the only way you can explain Cupcake Wars or Amish Mafia.  -via mental_floss

Hobbit Hole Bonsai Tree Posted: 23 Feb 2013 07:00 AM PST It was a bonsai, and that means comfort. Chris Guise's detailed model of Bag End is also a living bonsai tree. At the link, you can see step-by-step photos showing how he made it. Also: a cute wintertime version covered with snow and a featuring a snowman. Er, I mean, a snowhobbit. Link -via Nerd Approved

This Week at Neatorama Posted: 23 Feb 2013 06:00 AM PST The tulips are starting to sprout up through the fallen leaves in my flower garden. I'll wait until the first of March at least to pull the leaf cover off, but just the sight of those little green shoots excites me! Meanwhile, the Academy Awards will finally be given out tomorrow night …after an exceedingly long promotional period in which I learned enough about the nominated films to pretend I actually saw them. The only ones I really saw were the animated shorts, thanks to the internet. And thanks to the internet, I won't have to actually watch the awards show, as the results will be posted as they happen, and I can indulge in my Sunday night ritual of watching The Walking Dead (while still simultaneously surfing the internet, of course). Here's what happened this past week here at Neatorama. Don't miss our exclusive features! You still have time to catch up on them. The White House: Keeping Up Appearances came from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. The Annals of Improbable Research gave us Notes From an Expedition to the Cellfoan People. Alex posted a gallery of Surreal Landscapes by Jim Kazanjian at the Neatorama Spotlight blog. 10 Foods That (Thankfully) Flopped was from mental_floss magazine. "Madman" Newman's Brainteasers from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader gave us all plenty to argue about. In this week's What Is It? game, the pictured object is a homemade hammer. Berhard was first in with the correct answer, and wins a t-shirt! The funniest answer came from Algomeysa, who said, "If you're feeling left out because the Russian meteor didn't break your windows, you can alleviate the problem with this!" That deserves a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! See the answers to all this week's mystery items at the What Is It? blog. You'd expect the most comments to come from the What Is It? game and the Brainteasers, so discounting those, the posts with the most comments this week were Office Depot and OfficeMax to Merge, followed by A Truck Carrying a Truck Carrying a Truck Carrying a Car and STD Frisbee.  The comment of the week came from wonky donky, who had a better term for the Truck Carrying a Truck Carrying a Truck Carrying a Car: This is nothing more than the traditional Polish Thanksgiving stunt they pull every year called, "Truckducken". The most popular post of the week was the picture collection You Had One Job. That was followed by Hotel Het Arresthuis: Jail Turned Into Luxury Hotel and Clever Students Use Game Theory to Get Perfect Scores on an Exam. Usability Tip of the Week: Did you know you can embed images and videos in your comments? Look at this. When you click to open a comment window, look to the upper right. Click on "image," and an upload field will open. Click on "video" and you'll see a field in which you can enter a vimeo or YouTube link. You can switch back and forth from video or image to text, to add an explanation for your image or video. These will work even in replies to other comments, as you can see in the Rollin' Safaricomments. Note: newly registered members and those who haven't left many comments may not be able to access this feature. So leave more comments!   March starts this coming Friday. The NeatoShop doesn't have a dedicated "shop" for St. Patricks Day, but there is a section for St. Patricks day T-shirts, and you can find hats and other accessories as well. Order now so you'll have the cleverest shirt at the party! And if that isn't enough Neatorama for you, we have extra content and fun at our Facebook page, Twitter feed, Instagram, and Pinterest. And mobile users: Flipboard makes it easy to keep up with Neatorama.

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