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2014/07/12

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Kids Battle Their Bedroom Monsters

Posted: 12 Jul 2014 04:00 AM PDT



This photo series by French photographer Laure Fauvel shifts the power in favor of the children in the classic monster under the bed/in the closet scenario. These armed kids come out on top in Fauvel's photographs, as their monsters wave the proverbial white flag of surrender. It would certainly be an empowering photo to hang on the bedroom walls of children who are fearful of "things that go bump in the night." Via Trendhunter

Images Credit: Laurie Fauvel
 

Yoshi Prism - A Trip Down The Sewer Pipe

Posted: 12 Jul 2014 02:00 AM PDT


Yoshi Prism by Kannaya

Yoshi is one colorful fellow, and he lives with his bros in a world of vibrantly colored food he can wrap his tongue around whenever he wants a snack. He swallows coins, mushrooms, fire flowers, cookies, even turtles when he's feeling super hungry, and it would probably take an entire island full of food to satisfy Yoshi's dinosaur sized appetite!

Mario's friend looks mighty trippy on this Yoshi Prism t-shirt by Kannaya, it's a great way to show your love for friendly video game dinos and blow people's minds!

Visit Kannaya's official website, Facebook fan page, Twitter and Tumblr, then head on over to her NeatoShop for more eye popping designs:

RTweetD2 & C3PeepOKawaii MarcelineInfinityHow To Train Your Experiment 626

View more designs by Kannaya | More Funny T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Making Music with 10 Million Drops of Rain

Posted: 12 Jul 2014 02:00 AM PDT


(Video Link)

The splash in a puddle . . . the tapping on a metal roof during the night . . . the roar of a storm outside of your car. Rain makes different sounds depending on what it hits. Together, the drops can make a natural music. Yugo Nakamura demonstrates this in his video "The Origin of the Sound of Rain."

He recorded the sound of rain falling on different objects, including a snail, a glass, a rock, a flower, and more. He then played them in different orders and with varying tempos. The result is a beautiful, stormy symphony consisting of precisely 10,211,326 drops.

-via David Thompson

LEGO Boba Fett Costume

Posted: 12 Jul 2014 12:00 AM PDT

A member of The Dented Helmet forum made his 6-year-old son a Boba Fett LEGO minifig costume! He says,

I recently (semi) completed a Lego Boba Fett (Lego set 9496 - Desert Skiff) costume for my 6 year old son. We took the costume for a trial run at a local toycon this past Sunday. I still have to finish building the arms and blaster, as well as tweaking a few things such as the cape fabric. I approached the components of this project as if they were actual Lego elements. In doing so, I created the jetpack to be removable as it appears in the actual minifigure as well as the range finder stalk. The entire costume is built from scratch using photo references and scans I took myself. The costume is built primarily out of sintra with pink insulation foam used to carve the helmet dome and a small amount of plastazote foam used on the tips and base of the jetpack rockets. Torso and leg graphics are printed on adhesive vinyl while a custom green was used to colour match the helmet and jetpack. I would be happy to post progress photos of the build if anyone is interested in seeing the journey. Oh!, and there may soon be a certain someone, frozen in a certain something being pushed around by Lego Fett ; )

You can see plenty of pictures, including many taken during the build process at the forum thread. -via Laughing Squid

Carl Sagan Explained Death to His Young Daughter

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 11:00 PM PDT

Death is a topic of conversation that any child would ask their parents about, and many of us would deflect the question out of discomfort. "The kids are just too young to understand" is a common excuse.

But what if your father is a world famous scientist? How would he answer the question about death?

Sasha Sagan, daughter of astronomer Carl Sagan, told us the time when, as a young child, she asked her father about death:

One day when I was still very young, I asked my father about his parents. I knew my maternal grandparents intimately, but I wanted to know why I had never met his parents.

“Because they died,” he said wistfully.

“Will you ever see them again?” I asked.

He considered his answer carefully. Finally, he said that there was nothing he would like more in the world than to see his mother and father again, but that he had no reason — and no evidence — to support the idea of an afterlife, so he couldn’t give in to the temptation.

“Why?”

Then he told me, very tenderly, that it can be dangerous to believe things just because you want them to be true. You can get tricked if you don’t question yourself and others, especially people in a position of authority. He told me that anything that’s truly real can stand up to scrutiny.

As far as I can remember, this is the first time I began to understand the permanence of death. As I veered into a kind of mini existential crisis, my parents comforted me without deviating from their scientific worldview.

Read the rest of the story, including how Sasha would have to deal with her father's death not too long afterwards, over at New York Magazine - via PopSci

See also: 10 Neat Facts About Carl Sagan

Puppy Comforts Older Dog Having a Nightmare

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 10:00 PM PDT


(Video Link)

Ariel Goodman has two golden retrievers: a puppy and an old dog. One day, they were napping together when the older dog had a bad dream. This woke up the puppy, who comforted his packmate until the dream subsided.

-via VA Viper

Tiki Hangover: Unearthing the False Idols of America's South Seas Fantasy

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 09:00 PM PDT

Between 1955 and 1965, Americans were obsessed with “Tiki culture,” the lifestyle they perceived was led in Hawaii and the rest of Polynesia. It boomed with the stories brought home by World War II soldiers and the hit musical South Pacific. The trappings of the tropical lifestyle invaded bars, restaurants, and eventually homes. It exploded when Hawaii became a state in 1959. Sven Kirsten, who has written several books on the subject, tells us about the rise and fall of Tiki culture, which gave us the trappings of paradise without any real understanding of the actual culture of Polynesia.

Collectors Weekly: Where did the word “Tiki” come from?

Kirsten: Tiki was a mythological figure in Polynesia, a region defined by the Polynesian Triangle: There’s Hawaii in the north, Easter Island in the east, and New Zealand in the southwest. In the middle of that triangle are islands like Tahiti and Samoa. All of these islands share some common heritage and a similar language. They also had a religion based on ancestor worship, where their ancestors were deified in stories and myths and became their gods.

Tiki was like the Polynesian Adam, the creator of man, but he was sort of half-man and half-god. Eventually, all carvings and depictions that had human features became known as Tikis. The word “Tiki” was used in the Marquesas and by the Maori in New Zealand. In Hawaii, they’re called Ki’i, and in Tahiti they’re called Ti’i, because of the language variation. For example, the Hawaiian word for Tahiti is Kahiki (which was also a great restaurant in Columbus, Ohio), because the T becomes a K in Hawaiian. But that didn’t really matter to the Americans in the 1950s—basically all the different carving styles became members of the happy Tiki family, including the Easter Island Moai statues.

Read how Tiki culture took over America, as the fantasy of a stress-free paradise that never really existed, at Collectors Weekly.  

(Image credit: Sven Kirsten and Taschen)

51 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Los Angeles

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 08:00 PM PDT

(Watts Tower/Image Via marknye/Flickr)

Living in Southern California means living in the shadow of Los Angeles, or more precisely Hollywood.

Friends and family from other states inevitably ask you about L.A. when you live in SoCal, and they somehow assume we all know famous people, probably because if you live here long enough that whole "six degrees of separation" thing rings true.

(Image Via likeabalalaika)

Living in La La Land is a delightfully surreal experience, a surprisingly mundane experience, and a frustrating experience all rolled up in days of sunshine, traffic and movie star sightings.

It's surprising how little those who live in L.A. know about the city, and as a descendant of four generations of Angelenos I was surprised to find that many of the facts on BuzzFeed's 51 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Los Angeles were news to me! Read on and discover what lies beneath the glitz and glamour of Tinseltown.

This Is a Bicycle Escalator

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 07:00 PM PDT

(Photos: Trampe/CycloCable)

Bike riding is very popular in Norway, especially in the city of Trondheim. But there's a steep hill in that city called the Brubakken that most bicyclists won't try to climb. It's just too steep.

So in 1993, the city built a bicycle escalator. It recently upgraded the escalator into the one you see pictured here. It's a lift that moves at about 3.4 miles per hour up a 427-foot hill with a gradient of about 10-18º. 

Push a button on the control panel at the bottom, and a small metal plate moves up the hill. Bicyclists can brace a foot against this plate and ride it up to the top of the hill.

The lift is called the Trampe or CycloCable. The inventor, Jarle Wanvik, hopes to market his design across the world.


(Video Link)

-via Twisted Sifter

The Smell of Farts May Prevent Cancer

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 06:00 PM PDT

A new study out of the University of Exeter says catching a whiff of noxious gasses, like those in flatulence, could help the human body repair cell damage and prevent debilitating diseases such as cancer.

“Although hydrogen sulfide gas”—produced when bacteria breaks down food—”is well known as a pungent, foul-smelling gas in rotten eggs and flatulence, it is naturally produced in the body and could in fact be a healthcare hero with significant implications for future therapies for a variety of diseases,” Dr. Mark Wood said in a university release.

Although the stinky gas can be noxious in large doses, scientists believe that a whiff here and there has the power to reduce risks of cancer, strokes, heart attacks, arthritis, and dementia by preserving mitochondria.

But scientists aren’t advocating that we seek out flatulence: they are working on a compound, called AP39, that could deliver tiny doses to the body as needed.

(Image credit: The NeatoShop)

Ad Transforms a Bench into a Homeless Shelter

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 05:00 PM PDT

RainCity Housing is a non-profit organization in Vancouver that provides housing for people with mental illnesses and addiction problems. It wants to reach out to homeless people in Vancouver and invite them to seek help. 

To do so, the ad agency Spring Advertising designed this bench ad. The back folds up and locks into place, providing a partial shelter for people who living in the open in a city sometimes called "Raincouver." 

Another version of the bench has glow-in-the-dark text that says, "This is a bedroom."

-via Gizmodo

A Tumblr Dedicated To Sad Brazilians

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 04:00 PM PDT

Brazil spent over $13 billion dollars preparing for the FIFA World Cup 2014, a controversial move that incited fiery protests against Brazil and the World Cup, and caused people around the world to wonder how they could spend so much money on building several stadiums when poverty runs rampant throughout their country.

Brazil played on despite the controversy, making it to the semifinals where they were soundly defeated by Germany 7-1, in a sport that regularly ends with less than three points total being scored during the game.

Needless to say this resounding failure made Brazilian futbol fans very angry, and very, very sad, which prompted some fan of sports fan sadness to create a Tumblr called Sad Brazilians, quite possibly the saddest sports related site ever created.

Sorry about your loss Brazil, but at least you have a bunch of shiny stadiums so you can practice and prepare for World Cup 2018!

-Via Dangerous Minds

A Linguist of Fire and Blood

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 03:00 PM PDT

David J. Peterson is a linguist by trade and a conlanger by hobby -until he actually got a job inventing languages. HBO hired him to create the fantasy languages used in the series Game of Thrones: Dokrathi and Valyrian. How does one manage to land a job like that? They contacted a club of conlangers, the Language Creation Society.

The Language Creation Society then put together an application process, which took the form of a contest. You had to sign an NDA in order to see what show it was, so a lot of good conlangers—those of us who create languages for fun—didn’t take it seriously. But there were still about 40 really excellent conlangers who applied, and I was one of them. There were two rounds of judging. First round of judging was by language creators; the second round was by producers. And I’m the one who made it through both rounds.

I had been creating languages for 10 years. But everybody else applying was equally skilled. So I figured the edge that I had was pretty much an endless amount of time—I was unemployed. I just decided: Well, let’s just try to create the whole thing. In those rounds of judging, I created about 90 percent of the grammar—which is ridiculous for two months. Then I created 1,700 words of vocabulary—which is equally ridiculous for two months. Overall, I produced about 300 total pages of material. I figure that was probably what put it over the top.

Since then, Peterson has been pretty busy. In addition to Game of Thrones, he’s the staff linguist for several other TV series now. The A.V. Club talked to Peterson about the challenges of constructing a language, from scratch or from the few words George R.R. Martin used in his books, and what it’s like working for the hit HBO show. -via Metafilter  

Also check out Peterson’s blog, Dothraki.

Funny Pictures of the Day - NeatoPicto Jul 11, 2014

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 02:00 PM PDT


Amazing Anatomical Body Paint Art (Photo Thomas van de Wall)

Love funny pictures? You're in luck: we've just updated our LOLpic blog NeatoPicto with tons of funny and amazing pictures. Check it out:

Cute Puppy Turned Out to be CoyoteLearn To Fly HereSleeping Bag with LegsHonk for Grandma!


Where Men Fear to Tread


Model Airplane is Actually Yummy Chocolate


This Japanese Shrine is Dedicated to Curing Hemorrhoids


Concrete-Eating Robot

Love funny pics? View tons more at NeatoPicto!

Handful of Hot Ice

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 01:00 PM PDT


YouTube Link

NurdRage shows viewers what happens when one immerses their hand in a jar of molten sodium acetate as it crystallizes and turne to "ice." Spoiler: he lives.

Can You Explain This Gap in Your Resume?

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 12:00 PM PDT

(Amazing Super Powers)

You should already have a rehearsed, carefully thought-out answer to this question before you even begin the interview.

If there's something in your work history that may appear to be a weakness, present it as a strength. You weren't a moocher, but a consulting nutritional services analyst.

-via Tastefully Offensive

Drive-by Compliments

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 11:00 AM PDT

(YouTube link)

Wanna see an outbreak of smiles? Blake Grigsby had a buddy drive him around while he shouted through a megaphone at strangers on the street. Only he shouted compliments at them -not creepy compliments, just something to make people smile-and they did! -via Tastefully Offensive

Pley Is Like Netflix For LEGO Sets

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 10:00 AM PDT

(Image Via AllMyFaves)

For those who want to build LEGO sets without committing to the high cost of buying LEGO sets there is now a monthly rental option called Pley.

Pley is an online rental service that allows you, the builder, to rent sets for a monthly fee and return them whenever you’re done building them up and taking them apart again.

You get the joy of building (virtually) every LEGO set you've ever wanted to build without having to take out a loan, and they'll even forgive you for losing up to fifteen pieces, which is more forgiveness than you'd allow yourself after paying full price for a set.

The pieces are disinfected between rentals, their library is ever expanding, so any set you see is sure to show up in stock soon, and it serves as yet another example of how good kids have it nowadays!

-Via LifeHacker

Launching a New Website

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 09:30 AM PDT

Gregor Czaykowski at the webcomic Loading Artist did a makeover of the website and did several comics about the process. This one should be familiar to anyone who ever launched a new website. It’s one of the reasons why millions of bloggers don’t stick with it more than a few weeks.  

Sneaky Octopus Dismantles Camera

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 09:00 AM PDT


(Video Link)

We've seen an octopus steal a human diver's camera before. It was a great a video that inspired interesting comments on YouTube, such as this conversation:

Now humans are getting more careful when they dive in dangerous neighborhoods. Recently, Joe Kistel survived an attempted mugging while he was off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida. Kistel fought back and held on to his camera.

But the octopus was determined to get something out of his trouble. So he started stripping the camera for parts, which, I suppose, he could later sell at a chop shop. Mary Bates writes for National Geographic:

As Kistel filmed, the octopus reached for the camera, and then he noticed something in one of its arms: a gasket from the camera’s housing.

“I was completely surprised when he started to dismantle the camera,” Kistel said.

Kistel ended up playing tug-of-war with the octopus to retrieve the valuable camera part. “I think he was just curious,” Kistel said. “He saw something different and thought he would take it.”

What was the octopus trying to do? Was it demonstrating intelligence? Bates asked James Wood, a marine biologist, about how to understand the intelligence of an octopus. Woods wrote:

Intelligence is hard to define, even in humans. If an octopus made an IQ test for a human, it might have questions like, “How many different colors can your severed arm produce in a second?” That’s an intelligence-based skill that’s relevant to its survival that we don’t do.

Octopuses certainly learn very quickly in captivity. They pick up tests like mazes much like a rat or mouse does. They also learn who feeds them and when pretty rapidly. I worked with one octopus that would squirt you in the face with a perfectly aimed, direct jet of water if you were at all late in feeding it. You had to feed that one first or you’d get hosed.

-via Ian Chant

The Worst Muse

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 08:30 AM PDT

Rachel Edidin started a new Twitter account called The Worst Muse. If you’re looking for inspiration for your writing, you should look elsewhere. If you’re looking for advice, you should do just the opposite of what any of these Tweets tell you. But if you’re looking for a literary laugh, check it out.

Ya know, even comic relief can be a muse, if you understand where this muse is coming from.

-via Metafilter

Honest Brand Slogans

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 08:00 AM PDT

Clif Dickens seems to be onto something with his honest brand slogans. Whether or not you think they are representative of the brand, they are good for a smile. (I *knew* IKEA was messing with me!) See more of Clif's humor at his website, and see additional honest brand slogans at Bored Panda. 

 

Giraffe vs. Pride of Lions

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 07:30 AM PDT

(YouTube link)

When a giraffe is approached by a half-dozen lions, you’d expect the giraffe to run. After all, those ten-foot-long legs can cover some ground fast! But this giraffe is a mother, and the baby is what the lions are really stalking. If she has anything to do with it, there will be no giraffe veal dinner tonight! This video was taken at the Olare Motorogi Conservancy in the Masai Mara in Kenya. -via Daily Picks and Flicks

The Strange Movie H.R. Giger Spent Decades Trying To Make

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 07:00 AM PDT

H. R. Giger’s dream of making a "unique love story" based on his extremely visual ideas, a movie entitled The Mystery of San Gottardo, sadly wasn’t realized before his untimely death, and fans of Giger's work are left wondering what could have been...

San Gottardo is an "unique love story", a surreal exercise in human form and its deconstruction, and a waking nightmare all wrapped up in a package that looks like it was sent straight from Silent Hill.

In fact, some creatures from Silent Hill were definitely inspired by Giger’s San Gottardo project, does this lovely creature look familiar?:

Giger's Mystery movie was based on an early sketch he drew in 1963, and even though he started working on the storyline in the 70s, and had written the entire screenplay, San Gottardo proved to be far too strange for Hollywood studios to produce:

"It is about a man and his love for a freak of nature, Armbeinda, which is really a sentient limb combining an arm and a leg. It is the further development of a recurring image in my work over the last 30 years."

The concept stems from a 1963 creation called "The Beggar," Giger's very first sketch, featuring a leg and an arm holding a hat. Giger has filled several sketchbooks with the stories of these "reduced" beings.

The story concerns a race of biomechanoids created by a military organization. The premise: your arms and legs are slaves that do your bidding, but what if they have a mind of their own and were set free? Ink drawings depict the disembodied parts attacking their creator (Giger's self-portrait) in the San Gottardo border tunnel which links Switzerland and Italy. To insure that his vision remains intact, Giger hopes to retain creative control as a producer on the film... and not be forced to rely on CGI.

-Via io9

US Government Sends Draft Notices to 14,000 Men Born in the 1800s

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 06:30 AM PDT

If you're male and a citizen of the United States or a legal immigrant, you must register with the Selective Service System when you turn 18 years old. For the next 7 years, if there is ever a draft, you may get called up for mandatory service in the armed forces.

When an American boy approaches that age, the US government often mails him notices, reminding him of this legal requirement.

Under the current law, once you reach the age of 25, your eligibility for the draft is over. But that didn't stop the federal government from sending out registration notices to 14,000 men in Pennsylvania. All of these men were born between the years of 1893 and 1897. The AP reports:

Chuck Huey, 73, of Kingston, said he got a notice addressed to his late grandfather Bert Huey, a World War I veteran who was born in 1894 and died in 1995 at age 100.

"I said, 'Geez, what the hell is this about?' It said he was subject to heavy fines and imprisonment if he didn't sign up for the draft board," he said. "We were just totally dumbfounded."

The error was a result of a clerk failing to select for a century when importing records from a state database. The clerk intended to move records for men born between 1993 and 1997.

-via Dave Barry

Tonari No Cheshire - Can Your Neighbor Stand On His Head?

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 06:00 AM PDT


Tonari No Cheshire by ArryDesign

If you see a great big, grinning purple bus shaped like a cat staring down at you from a mushroom you'd better pinch yourself to see if you're dreaming. He's not a hallucination, he's just a friendly neighbor from an anime wonderland who wants to offer you a ride down the rabbit hole. Will you take him up on his offer?

Visit ArryDesign's official website and Facebook fan page, then check out her NeatoShop page for more far out designs:

Doctor TurtleWalking Plantsfan4Blackwater Octopus

View more designs by ArryDesign | More Funny T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Crazy Planet Of The Apes Moments

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 06:00 AM PDT

The world has once again gone to the apes thanks to the new film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, so folks are trotting out all kinds of factoids from the original five films, remembering how much they hated the Tim Burton remake, and discussing whether the new film will faithfully add to the original franchise...

That’s great and all, but what if you want to see some ape suited actors letting it all hang out? You need to check out this Variety article entitled 7 Crazy Planet of the Apes Moments You Won’t Believe, because it’s the swingin’ place to be!

There’s a young(ish) Cher hanging out with some simian pals:

Paul Williams in full orangutan makeup singing a soulful tune on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson:

(Video Link)

...and many more examples of monkeying around sure to make you screech with laughter!

It might be just the thing to get you in the mood to watch the original five movies again, and the perfect demonstration of why practical effects are sometimes way better than CGI- because animated apes can't make guest appearances on TV shows!

18 Fantastically Geeky Comforters and Duvet Covers

Posted: 11 Jul 2014 05:30 AM PDT

Do you miss the Star Wars or superhero sheets you had when you were a kiddo? While you might be a bit too grown up for those designs (and they probably don't make them big enough for your adult-sized bed), there are plenty of great geeky bed sets out there for adults these days.

Over at Homes and Hues, we rounded up some of the best nerdy designs from science, gaming, sci-fi and more so you can finally sleep in with the things you love most. 

Best of all, most of these designs are a lot more chic than your standard children's bedspreads so you can show off your geek side while still showing a little style.

Don't miss the full list over at Homes and Hues: 18 Geek Chic Bedspreads, Comforters and Duvet Covers
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