Neatorama

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• A Day In The Life Of A Witcher 3 Village
• Pumpkin Spice Latte M&Ms
• Penis Island Sign to be Changed
• Cat Hospital
• Engineers Determine How to Win at Poohsticks
• An Honest Trailer for <i>Mad Max: Fury Road</i>
• Cat Joins Her Dog Friend in His Cone of Shame
• Grusome Choice - The Easiest Way To Stump A Minion
• How to Age Gracefully
• Sliced Deadpool Table
• Cat Running for Prime Minister
• Darth Punk: The Funk Awakens
• Non-Grade ‘A’ Milk Product, Natural Milk Vitamins Removed
• Get Intimate with the Kiss Coffee Cup Lid
• The Palace of the Marquis de Dos Aguas
• The Strange Origins Of Seven Pop Culture Franchises
• 10-Year Old Gets Bitten by Shark, Escapes, <i>Then</i> Jumps Back into the Water to Rescue Another Child
• The True Story of Kudzu, the Vine That Never Truly Ate the South
• Dog Frolics With Baby Elephant
• Little Darn Cute JVS - Little League Versus Shrimpy Squad
• Shifting Cities
• Ten Companies That Treat Their Employees Worse Than Amazon
• Dramatic Rescue of Kitten from Flooded Storm Drain
• A Surfboard Made by a Rocket Scientist
• MIT's Glass 3D Printer is Mesmerizing
• Beautiful Bridge in Copenhagen Celebrates the City's Maritime Heritage
• Short Documentary Captures The Jalopy Joy Of 24 Hours Of LeMons

A Day In The Life Of A Witcher 3 Village Posted: 26 Aug 2015 04:00 AM PDT When you visit towns in most roleplaying video game you're able to interact with a bunch of drones that are programmed to give a response to a few choice questions and wander about looking busy. The game designers behind the Witcher series are working hard to bring the entire fantastic world the game is set in to life, including every person in every town, and Witcher 3 promised to deliver the most realistic experience yet. But Kotaku UK's Rick Lane wasn't convinced, and after spending nearly 100 hours of playtime in game he decided to “dedicate an entire in-game day to walking around a single village, observing the population without interacting directly, and keep a detailed account of what I saw. “ Rick saw a good many strange things about the non-player populace in Witcher 3, including one thing that made him a bit concerned: I don’t think children in The Witcher 3 sleep. Ever. They just sit and stare blankly at the wall, all night, every night. Read A Day In The Life Of A Witcher 3 Village here

Pumpkin Spice Latte M&Ms Posted: 26 Aug 2015 03:00 AM PDT ’Tis the season to roll out the most imaginative takes on the pumpkin spice craze. The latest is M&Ms. The candy company is rolling out two seasonal flavors: Pecan Pie M&Ms and Pumpkin Spice Latte M&Ms. Both use artificial flavoring; I suppose a lot of it if you’re going to make chocolate taste like not only pumpkin pie spice but latte as well. The Pecan Pie flavor seems even weirder, like ruining two great ideas by combining them. Both flavors will be available soon at Target stores. -via Uproxx

Penis Island Sign to be Changed Posted: 26 Aug 2015 02:00 AM PDT A sign welcoming visitors to the Scottish Isle of Bute in both English and Gaelic has been standing for around nine years, but it was only recently that officials were told of a translation error -actually just a missing accent mark- that renamed the island Penis island. Àdhamh Ó Broin, a native dialect campaigner and Gaelic coach for the TV series Outlander, said: “It’s meant to be the genitive case, not the genital case. A genitive case is when one noun follows another and its form changes. Bhòid is Bute but Bhoid is penis. You would need the accent over the ‘O’. It says ‘Welcome to the doorway to the beauty of Penis Island’.” He added: “You know when people speak Chinese the wrong way and they end up saying ‘Your mother is a dog’ instead of ‘The rice is nice’? It’s like that.” After a photograph of the sign went viral, local council members promised to investigate how the sign ended up that way. The sign will be corrected as soon as possible.   Bute councillor Len Scoullar, an independent, said: “It makes us look bloody stupid. To be fair, only 1.1% of Scottish residents speak Gaelic. And those people probably thought it was funny. -via Arbroath   (Image credit: Coinneach Combe)

Cat Hospital Posted: 26 Aug 2015 01:00 AM PDT Cat Hospital is a classic soap opera set in a hospital, with cats. The lead characters are a surgeon who lost an eye to a cat scratch from a patient, and nurse Mittens, who gets around. (YouTube link) Follow the adventures of the doctors and nurses of Cat Hospital, their families, the sexy ambulance driver, Dr. Scratch Adams, patients with nine lives, and a variety of standard soap opera stereotypes both human and feline. Oh yeah, and an overabundance of cat puns. -via HuffPo

Engineers Determine How to Win at Poohsticks Posted: 26 Aug 2015 12:00 AM PDT (Image: E.H. Shepard) In the original Winnie the Pooh stories, Pooh and Christopher Robin like to play a game that they call "Poohsticks." This consists of standing on a bridge and dropping sticks over the upstream side. The person whose stick emerges on the downstream side the first wins. This is an actual sport that people play. If you play, it would be a good idea to master the physics of the game in order to optimize your performance. Experts at the Royal Academy of Engineering have figured that out. Ideally, a Poohstick is covered with bark, fairly heavy, and dense. The Daily Telegraph reports: The main variables that need to be considered are cross sectional area, density, buoyancy, and drag. Usually large objects are slowed down by drag but in water the large size will allow it to be swept along more quickly by the water. “When it comes to Poohsticks the tubbier the better,” said Dr Rhys Morgan, Director of Engineering and Education at the Royal Academy of Engineering. “If more water is able to influence the trajectory of the stick, it will accelerate more quickly. “Generally, a rough stick will create more drag than a smooth stick, so in general, bark is good.”

An Honest Trailer for <i>Mad Max: Fury Road</i> Posted: 25 Aug 2015 11:00 PM PDT What can Screen Junkies tear apart in the movie Mad Max: Fury Road? In this Honest Trailer, they are stretched pretty hard to find much to nitpick about. Well, there’s the fact that Max himself is pretty much superfluous to the film.   (YouTube link) Oh, the movie isn’t perfect, but it was so much fun that even an Honest Trailer had to admit it was altogether a badass flick. The credits, full of puns and pop culture references, are the best part. -via Tastefully Offensive

Cat Joins Her Dog Friend in His Cone of Shame Posted: 25 Aug 2015 10:00 PM PDT She could just tease him about his post-surgical collar. But instead, redditor kelldog24's kitty decided to hang out with her buddy. She crawled into his cone of shame to provide a snuggle. -via Incredible Things

Grusome Choice - The Easiest Way To Stump A Minion Posted: 25 Aug 2015 09:00 PM PDT Grusome Choice by Chicoloco Designs Bananas have always been a Minion's favorite food, but the littlest Minion had a new idea about what makes a food good. It seems he'd gotten the idea from a show called Sesame Street, featuring a hairy blue monster who was obsessed with these round things called cookies. Once the littlest Minion had gotten his hands on a cookie and tasted its sweet chocolately goodness his skin began to turn blue and he became even more despicable than before! He couldn't stop talking about cookies, told everyone else to call him Cookie, and his praise of cookies presented the rest of the Minions with a really grusome choice... Bring some deliciously geeky fun to your wardrobe with this Grusome Choice t-shirt by Chicoloco, it'll help you start snack arguments wherever you go! Visit Chicoloco's Facebook fan page and Twitter, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more delightfully geeky designs: Squelette En Noir Old 8-Bit Era Headless Horseman Redneck Poster Style View more designs by Chicoloco Designs | 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!

How to Age Gracefully Posted: 25 Aug 2015 09:00 PM PDT This is good. CBC Radio WireTap  assembled folks of all ages to draw on their experiences and give advice to people who are younger. (YouTube link) It’s all good advice. Some of it hits close to home, especially when they get in my age range. Of course, the best advice is from the 93-year-old man who is the last one. -via reddit

Sliced Deadpool Table Posted: 25 Aug 2015 08:00 PM PDT Instructables member Britt Michelsen is a chemical engineer specializing in computational fluid dynamics. She's also a fangirl with incredible crafting skills. In the past, we've seen her edible Harry Potter wands, pixelated trashcan, and dead Kenny doorstop. Now she presents to the world a table that looks like it's levitating. Deadpool has cut straight through 2 legs, but it's still standing. In fact, an adult can sit on it without difficulty. That's because the 2 cut legs are decorative. The table stays up because the other legs have metal reinforcements that connect to a plate beneath the rug.

Cat Running for Prime Minister Posted: 25 Aug 2015 07:00 PM PDT Earl Grey is a cat with political ambitions. He is running for prime minister of Canada as the Tuxedo Party candidate. That’s the same party that promoted the candidacy of Tuxedo Stan for mayor of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Stan, sadly, died in 2013. Earl Grey is keeping Stan’s legacy alive by aiming for a nationwide office. His platform is all about animal welfare and animal rights, particularly those of cats. Read more about Earl Grey and his campaign at his website, and see more pictures of the cat at Buzzfeed. (Image credit: Tuxedo Party of Canada Cat Welfare Society)

Darth Punk: The Funk Awakens Posted: 25 Aug 2015 06:00 PM PDT On the mean streets of Coruscant, people can hear a revolutionary new sound. It is sweeping away the old order. Secretly, the electronic music duo of Darth Vader and Boba Fett are luring people over to the Punk Side of the Force. In this vibrant video by Infectious Design, they challenge a Jedi gang to a dance-off. (Video Link) -via Fashionably Geek

Non-Grade ‘A’ Milk Product, Natural Milk Vitamins Removed Posted: 25 Aug 2015 05:00 PM PDT Mary Lou Wesselhoeft runs a Florida creamery that makes skim milk. All-natural skim milk, with nothing added. She has a free speech lawsuit against the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DACS) because they forbade her from calling the product “skim milk.” Mary Lou wants to label it as “pasteurized skim milk.” But DACS wants her to use a confusing and misleading label that labels the milk something it is not: “Non-Grade ‘A’ Milk Product, Natural Milk Vitamins Removed.” Why? Because DACS has decided that what you and I call skim milk—that is, whole milk with the cream skimmed off—is not actually skim milk at all unless it’s artificially injected with vitamin A. The fact is, when milk is skimmed, much of its vitamin A is removed. DACS has demanded that it not be called “skim milk” unless and until vitamin A is injected back into it. Mary Lou suggested other labels that would inform her customers the skim milk is merely pasteurized skim milk, not an artificially processed “milk product,” but DACS rejected each one. The agency’s reasoning behind the rule is to give consumers what they expect from product labels, but let’s be honest -do you ever think about the vitamin A content of your milk? I don’t. I might think of the vitamin D content, only because milk with vitamin D added is labeled as such. Actually, I just buy whole milk. However, the result of the regulation is that they are ordering Ocheesee Creamery to effectively lie about what their milk jugs have in them. Maybe they could come up with a compromise. How about ALL skim milk be labeled as “Non-Grade ‘A’ Milk Product, Natural Milk Vitamins Removed.” The standard skim milk we are supposedly used to can be labeled “Non-Grade ‘A’ Milk Product, Natural Milk Vitamins Removed and Re-Added.” The result of that will be a whole lot of Floridians switching to regular whole milk.   -via reddit (Photo: courtesy Institute for Justice)

Get Intimate with the Kiss Coffee Cup Lid Posted: 25 Aug 2015 04:00 PM PDT Sweet, sweet coffee. You love other people. But, truly, only coffee loves you back. Coffee alone fully responds to your morning inquiries. Coffee alone provides the stimulation that you crave. That's why South Korean designer Jang Wooseok developed a coffee cup lid that looks like a pair of human lips. It's disposable--not something interested in a serious relationship. -via Design Boom

The Palace of the Marquis de Dos Aguas Posted: 25 Aug 2015 03:00 PM PDT The fabulously wealthy Rabassa de Perelló family build themselves a home in Valencia, Spain, in 1750. They hired the most prestigious architects and builders, and spared no expense on the materials and artwork. The result is an elaborately ornate, even overdone, Baroque palace. It’s impossible to walk past the palace without stopping in stunned silence at the elaborate alabaster sculptures which frame the principal entrance. A statue of Our Lady of the Rosary stands above the door, while two rivers (symbolizing the “Dos Aguas” of the family’s title) cascade down either side of the niche. Closer to the ground, two buckled-over giants are supporting an intricately-decorated scene of trees, leaves, fruits, animals, the family crest and, of course, abundant waters. The inside is even more astounding. The Palace of the Marquis de Dos Aguas has been fully restored with many of its original furnishings, and is also the home of the González Martí National Museum of Ceramics and Sumptuary Arts. Quite a sight! Get a mini-tour with lots of pictures and video from Jürgen Horn and Mike Powell at For 91 Days.

The Strange Origins Of Seven Pop Culture Franchises Posted: 25 Aug 2015 02:00 PM PDT Knowing the origin of a pop culture franchise probably won't change the way you feel about the franchise, but if you're as obsessive about your favorite stories as I am then you'll probably do some digging. Researching will uncover simple roots for many franchises, but then there are franchises like Predator, Super Mario Bros., A Nightmare On Elm Street and Gilligan's Island that have some pretty unusual origin stories. The 'shrooms that make Mario grow up big and strong in Super Mario Bros. look just like amanita muscaria, the hallucinogenic mushroom, so the game could be seen as one big 'shroom trip. Gilligan's Island also has a fairly simple origin- the islanders represent the seven deadly sins. A Nightmare On Elm Street started with a news story about a deadly nightmare killing young men in southeast Asia during the 1970s and 80s. Wes Craven read a news story about a bunch of young men who died of SUDS (sudden unexpected death syndrome) in their sleep, combined that with a bully from his childhood and Freddy Krueger was born. And last but certainly not least there's Predator- the Rocky sequel we never knew we wanted until we saw it in theaters. Predator started as a running joke in Hollywood that said Rocky would have to fight an alien in Rocky V to top Rocky IV. Read the Cracked Classic- The 7 Most WTF Origins Of Iconic Pop Culture Franchises here

10-Year Old Gets Bitten by Shark, Escapes, <i>Then</i> Jumps Back into the Water to Rescue Another Child Posted: 25 Aug 2015 01:00 PM PDT (Photo: News 4 Jax) 10-year old Kaley Szarmack was swimming off Jacksonville Beach, Florida last Wednesday. A three-foot shark bit one of her legs--a wound that would eventually require 90 stitches. But Kaley didn't let that mere flesh wound distract her. After realizing that a 6-year old friend of the family was still in the water, she ran back out, grabbed the younger child, and pulled her in before the shark could get a bite from her, too. News 4 Jax quotes her father: “I am just so proud of her. And so thankful that she is doing so well. You know, she's got no permanent damage that we know of at this point, and they said she is going to heal up. She'll be able to run, jump, swim and surf in not too long of healing time. Going to have a pretty big scar and quite a story to tell though,” Dave Szarmack said. -via Ace of Spades HQ

The True Story of Kudzu, the Vine That Never Truly Ate the South Posted: 25 Aug 2015 12:00 PM PDT A few years ago, Alex posted about kudzu, a peculiar invasive species of fast-growing vine that has become a symbol of the South. Photographs of kudzu covering trees, telephone poles, and abandoned houses are impressive to those not familiar with the plant. We who live with it make enough jokes about it to add to its mystique. In popular literature, it became “the plant that ate the South.”   Though William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and others in that first great generation of Southern writers largely ignored kudzu, its metaphorical attraction became irresistible by the early 1960s. In the often-cited poem “Kudzu,” Georgia novelist James Dickey teases Southerners with their own tall tales, invoking an outrageous kudzu-smothered world where families close the windows at night to keep the invader out, where the writhing vines and their snakes are indistinguishable. “I thought the whole world would someday be covered by it, that it would grow as fast as Jack’s beanstalk, and that every person on earth would have to live forever knee-deep in its leaves,” Morris wrote in Good Old Boy: A Delta Boyhood. For the generations of writers who followed, many no longer intimately connected to the land, kudzu served as a shorthand for describing the Southern landscape and experience, a ready way of identifying the place, the writer, the effort as genuinely Southern. A writer for Deep South Magazine recently gushed that kudzu is “the ultimate icon for the South...an amazing metaphor for just about every issue you can imagine within Southern Studies.” One blogger, surveying the kudzu-littered literature of the modern South, dryly commented that all you have to do to become a Southern novelist is “throw in a few references to sweet tea and kudzu.” But that’s not the way it is. The oft-quoted statistic of kudzu covering nine million acres came from a  dubious source that has since been debunked. In fact, there are many myths about kudzu that just ain’t necessarily so, that you can read about at Smithsonian. -via Digg (Image credit: Flickr user Chris Dilworth)

Dog Frolics With Baby Elephant Posted: 25 Aug 2015 11:00 AM PDT YouTube Link Yindee, a baby elephant who lives at the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand, warmed up to a canine friend who was interested in romping around with him in the spirit of playtime. With his elders looking on, Yindee is able to safely experiment with leisure encounters of the canine kind, and the two oddly matched playmates seem to enjoy each other. Via Laughing Squid

Little Darn Cute JVS - Little League Versus Shrimpy Squad Posted: 25 Aug 2015 10:00 AM PDT Little Darn Cute JVS by Prime Premne The League found themselves going heads up with the Squad, and where one believed in justice and the other was willing to undergo suicide missions for their freedom they were both so darn cute it was hard to decide who to root for. Even the Batguy looked all adorable, Harley looked like a knockout as usual, but Supes and Martian Manhunter looked like they'd just woken up on the wrong side of Cutesville... Spread some superheroic smiles wherever you go with this Little Darn Cute JVS t-shirt by Prime Premne, and watch your fellow fans flock to help solve the mystery of who will win in this cuteness showdown! Visit Prime Premne's Facebook fan page and Twitter, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more delightfully geeky designs: 4 Oozemen Attack The People Immortanlands Paddock 9: Prehistorical! View more designs by Prime Premne | More Comic 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!

Shifting Cities Posted: 25 Aug 2015 10:00 AM PDT Keir Clarke built an interactive map that shows the top ten U.S. cities for every decade’s census from 1790. Included is a changing list of the cities and a red marker showing the country’s geographical population center. As you click through the decades, you can see it move west. The list itself is interesting. The number one city never changes, but others jump on and off the top ten. While New York City stays at the top, Brooklyn was also on the top ten through most of the 19th century. The interactive map is here, and you can read about how the map was created at Maps Mania.

Ten Companies That Treat Their Employees Worse Than Amazon Posted: 25 Aug 2015 09:00 AM PDT Image: Jorfer  With the recent New York Times article regarding Amazon's poor treatment of its employees, much talk about corporate workplace environments has taken place of late. Comparisons of policies are being made and former and current employees are telling horror stories. Certainly, Amazon isn't the company with the worst ever policies concerning employees; there are other corporations that are major offenders as well.  The article linked below lists ten companies that rival or even surpass Amazon in their bad treatment of the workforce they employ. One example the writer cites is Sears, backing up his claims with the following terrifying tale: "In 2003, horrendous working conditions were discovered in a Samoan factory used for outsourcing by Sears and JC Penney. Workers (mostly from Vietnam and China) were taken to the factory at a cost that left them deeply in debt. They also had their pay cut on the slightest provocation and received about $500 for nine months’ work. Food was so scarce that 251 people had to subsist off a single 1-kilogram (2 lb) chicken at mealtimes. When workers complained, management shut off the electricity, making temperatures soar to dangerous levels. Worst of all, the investigation found that torture had been used to keep workers in line. In November 2000, the factory owner authorized management to make an example of a Vietnamese seamstress. In front of her coworkers, she was dragged from her workstation and had her eye gouged out with a plastic pipe. When the revelations broke, JC Penney announced that it would financially compensate those involved. Sears refused to give them a single penny." Read more stories alleging awful corporate treatment of employees here.

Dramatic Rescue of Kitten from Flooded Storm Drain Posted: 25 Aug 2015 08:30 AM PDT Here we have a newsworthy version of the classic moment when a bunch of women see a kitten and squeal with delight. They had a really good reason- this kitten’s life was saved from a storm drain full of rising water during a storm in Charleston, South Carolina. Dorella Tuckwiller of the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee went head first into the drain to pull the kitten out. Firefighter Galeena Wileman held a rope tied to Tuckwiller’s foot in case the attempt went bad.   (YouTube link) There were three kittens in the drain when the storm began. The mother cat removed one, another kitten drowned, and the third was rescued. The rushing water was much worse before the video began. Firefighters and volunteers built a makeshift dam upstream from the drain to lower the water level for the rescue. The kitten, named Stormy, spent some time in an animal hospital and is now is doing well in a foster home. -via Laughing Squid

A Surfboard Made by a Rocket Scientist Posted: 25 Aug 2015 08:00 AM PDT (Photo: Varial) Edison Conner, a rocket scientist who used to work for SpaceX, saw that surfboard design and manufacturing had not changed substantially in 50 years. It still consisted of mostly layers of fiberglass and resin over wood and foam. So Conner established a new company, Varial Surf Technology, and used the latest knowledge of materials science to develop a firm by extremely light surfboard. Popular Science reports: They replaced the wooden stringer with an ultra­rigid foam similar to the type used in helicopter rotor blades and in rocket-propulsion systems. The foam is 30 percent stronger, with seven times the stiffness (or modulus) of conventional foam. It’s also 25 percent lighter. That means surfers have a board that’s easier to control and more durable. Varial’s chemists altered the poly­mers of the foam, producing high levels of crystallinity. The crystallized foam consists of structured, rigid latticelike polymer chains. Crystallization also makes cell walls thinner. That lets chemists pack more cells into a tighter, more-angular (or poly­gonal) cell structure. The structure is stronger and firmer than the looser, more-bubblelike cell structure of conventional polyurethane foam. Because these boards are so much lighter than common surfboards, they can be used to ride much smaller waves. -via Glenn Reynolds

MIT's Glass 3D Printer is Mesmerizing Posted: 25 Aug 2015 07:30 AM PDT Vimeo Link This footage by Mediated Matter Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology illustrates their first transparent glass 3-D printer. Called G3DP (Glass 3D Printing), the printer has dual heated chambers. The upper chamber, a “Kiln Cartridge,” operates at 1900°F; the lower chamber heats then cools to soften the glass. Watching the process is both soothing and satisfying. Via Gizmodo

Beautiful Bridge in Copenhagen Celebrates the City's Maritime Heritage Posted: 25 Aug 2015 07:00 AM PDT (Photo: Anders Sune Berg) Whenever I see photos of Copenhagen, I want to go there. For hundreds of years, the capital of Denmark has been one of the great trading centers of the world. Ships from many nations touch there, so it is appropriate that this footbridge reflects that heritage. This is the Cirkelbroen bridge, a gift to the people of Copenhagen from the non-profit Nordea-Fonden. Architect Olafur Eliasson designed it with high masts and lines to remind viewers of the great sailing vessels that once poured into and out of the harbor. He expects that daily traffic will be about 5,000 people. You can see more photos of it at Contemporist.

Short Documentary Captures The Jalopy Joy Of 24 Hours Of LeMons Posted: 25 Aug 2015 06:00 AM PDT Everyone has heard of the Le Mans (officially 24 Hours of Le Mans), it's the oldest automotive race in the world and has been held annually since 1923, but have you ever seen 24 Hours Of LeMons? The LeMons is (arguably) way more fun to watch than Le Mans because entrants are only allowed to drive cars valued at less than $500 total. Created by a creative car guy from Car & Driver magazine in 2006, the LeMons is ludicrous fun for viewers, but sometimes not so much fun for the drivers. (Vimeo Link) Documentarian Marcus Ubungen captured all the jalopy hijinks of LeMons and clipped into a short documentary called “Halloween Meets Gasoline- The 24 Hours Of LeMons" -Via Laughing Squid

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