Neatorama |
- Books on Vinyl
- Belarusians Strip Naked after Accidental Order from Their Dictator
- Market Street, San Francisco, 1906
- A Man And His Chicken Travel around the World
- Canada Day Cake
- Amazing 3d Printed Zoetrope Shows a Dancer in Motion
- America's First "Climate Refugees"
- Llama Loves Leaf Blower
- I Want a Wig Vase
- Special Wheels Let This Car Roll in Any Direction
- Wagon Ride - You Shouldn't Have To Force Kids To Have Fun
- Norway Built A World-Record-Setting Bonfire Last Weekend
- Vegan Realizes He Accidentally Ate Cheese, Loses His Mind
- This Champion Bodybuilder Is 80 Years Old
- Tiny Sticky Note Nightmares By John Kenn Mortensen
- 39 Fun Museum Facts
- Child With Raft On His Head Photoshopped Into Strange Predicaments
- 20 Heroes, Villains, Aliens, and Monsters Who Ran for President
- McDonald's Cheeseburger Meal + Juicer = The Ultimate Unhappy Meal
- The Humiliating Practice of Sex-Testing Female Athletes
- Test Tube Chandeliers
- The Real Six-Pack - Exercise Your Right To Party
- 10 Fictional Weapons from Movies Becoming a Reality Now
- Rare Footage Of Bruce Lee's Teacher Yip Man Training Days Before His Death
| Posted: 30 Jun 2016 04:59 AM PDT Neatorama is proud to bring you a guest post from Ernie Smith, the editor of Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail. In another life, he ran ShortFormBlog. Audiobooks are common these days, but advocates for those with vision disabilities saw their value early—as well as the value of the vinyl record. It’s the great challenge of a newsletter editor when they hear this phrase—“hey, this newsletter would be really good as a podcast!” I understand the demand for things like this, because people love sounds running into their ears when they’re on the go, and you have to physically press your fingers down on your phone to read Neatorama or Tedium. But I’m way more clever and way less likely to say “like” and “y’know” when I write things down, so that’s why this comes in a text format. However, there is in fact an interesting history around stories being told in audio form that has nothing to do with either This American Life, podcasts like the excellent Reply All, or the books-as-MP3s service Audible. Today’s issue talks about the important role that the loss of one sense—that is, blindness—played in the creation of a medium perfect for another. Books for Blind People
The technical considerations of early audiobooksThe strategy that eventually went into use in creating some of the earliest audiobooks is best explained through a couple of different forms of media technology that you might be more familiar with. Here goes: If you’re willing to lose quality, you gain space. If you went to Blockbuster back in the day, odds are generally pretty good that you’d rent a tape that’s around two hours long. But if you went to your local Radio Shack, you’d find video tape that would let you record for hours at a time. Those tapes are still available, and can hold up to 12 hours of material. But the thing you give up for that extra length is quality. Fragmenting, for example, is incredibly common, as is visual noise. Sometimes, lower sound quality is OK. For example, FM radio is clearly better in every way than AM radio, and relies on the improved bandwidth to bring high-quality music to your car. But that AM bandwidth still comes in handy for certain uses that don’t need such fidelity—you don’t need FM quality to make out the thoughts of Rush Limbaugh or Art Bell. And going even further, Shortwave radio has even lower quality—but gains massive reach. It’s all give and take. Vinyl records came in different speeds. Different records play at revolutions per minute, or RPM, which allows the audio to take up differing amounts of space. And records didn’t always follow the traditional formats that you might find in stores, which these days usually come in 12-inch 33⅓ RPM albums and 7-inch 45 RPM singles. During the 1930s and 1940s, for example, radio stations would syndicate shows using gigantic 16-inch vinyl records called transcription discs. (They’re pretty rare, but they pop up on YouTube occasionally.) Finally, vinyl is quirky and endlessly fascinating. There’s a vinyl-head phenomenon that’s cropped up over the past decade where people take 45 RPM records and slow them down to 33⅓ RPM, which turns Dolly Parton’s classic “Jolene” into a Ray Lamontagne song and Michael Jacksoninto Luther Vandross. (It also works the other way, as well—I can’t find a clip on YouTube to prove this, but speeding up The Beatles’ “Let it Be” from 33⅓ RPM to 45 RPM basically turns it into a lost Jackson 5 song.) For people of a certain mindset, this is like the coolest rabbit hole ever. In their own small ways, ideas driving each of the above concepts apply to the earliest audiobooks. How “Talking Books” got vinyl records spinningThe Library of Congress, with the help of the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), borrowed from many of the concepts mentioned above in building the technology that became “Talking Book Records.” In fact, the earliest format that went into general use was a 12-inch, 33⅓ RPM vinyl record, very similar to the kind you can find at Urban Outfitters today. Vision-impaired readers were among the first to use this format, at a time when the public was still living life at 78 RPM. How did the American Foundation for the Blind get their hands on vinyl at a time when everyone else was still using fragile shellac? Credit AFB for doing its due diligence and keeping its eyes on new technologies to make audiobooks feasible from a cost perspective. In 1927, the foundation reached out Frank L. Dyer, a onetime associate of Thomas Edison who had recently patented a process for creating high-capacity “talking machine records.” These records were roughly al By getting Dyer interested in the project early, AFB and the Library of Congress were able to take advantage of his patents on a royalty-free basis. By 1935, the federal government—working with more than $200,000 in funding allotted to the Works Progress Administration (WPA)—started producing 5,000 talking-book machines, which allowed vision-impaired people to listen to audiobooks, often at a library. The machines were a particularly important part of the equation due to the fact that 33⅓ RPM record players didn’t become common until after WWII. These days, 12-inch vinyl records—which later got past their technical weaknesses and are now considered to have masterful sound—are associated more closely with the Beatles and the heady years of rock ‘n’ roll than they are with audiobooks, and audiobooks themselves became more closely affiliated with the cassette tape thanks to the 1975 founding of Books on Tape, but the efforts of AFB and the Library of Congress to ensure vision-impaired people have the opportunity to read kept record players and vinyl records specifically in production all the way up to the 1990s. The era of smartphones and CDs may have changed the format, but it hasn’t stopped the mission. The Library of Congress’ National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped remains active to this day—with AFB’s help still strong. FormatsLater AFB audiobooks played at 16⅔ rpm. This speed, while uncommon in the wild, was nonetheless a feature of many mainstream record players produced during the 1960s. While music could be played in this format—and it was, thanks to the Seeburg 1000 Background Music System—the compression of the grooves into such a tight space ensured that the sound quality was lower. But the fact that these records had bigger capacity—a 10-inch record would include 45 minutes of music per side—helped cut costs by allowing audiobooks to fit on fewer records. (Fun fact: this RPM speed was also used on an early attempt at making a record player for cars.) During the 1960s and 1970s, audio transciptions ran at 8⅓ rpm. This format, created largely by the AFB specifically for vision-impaired people, was mostly meant for distributing magazines, and could hold as much as six hours of spoken-word content on a single 12-inch platter. Here’s a sample of what an issue of Newsweek sounded like on one of these tightly-wound records. An Early InfluencePerhaps the most surprising part about the creation of vinyl audiobooks for blind audiences is the fact that there was a very prominent early critic of this approach: Helen Keller, the famed subject of The Miracle Worker. Keller, a groundbreaking deaf and blind woman who worked with AFB for more than four decades, was not immediately convinced that the foundation should be working on audiobooks or even transcribed books in Braille, arguing her point in economic terms: During a time when people are struggling to find work, why should the foundation put so much energy into a purely educational effort? “Will radios and talking-books take the place of food, shelter and clothing? Naturally I am not willing to divert the attention of the public to talking-books while more urgent needs of the sightless demand first service,” Keller wrote to a friend in February 1935. That skepticism in the end didn’t stop her from taking a key role in its launch. Eventually she decided to change her mind on opposing the project, realizing she could be a roadblock in its success within the organization, and became a key advocate for it in front of both Congress and the President Roosevelt. Her book Midstream was even used as a technology sample. In September of 1935, Roosevelt signed an executive order funding the Talking Books project—and putting AFB in charge of it. Keller was ambivalent toward the final result, especially as it didn’t benefit her personally because she was deaf, but she knew when it was time to help.
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| Belarusians Strip Naked after Accidental Order from Their Dictator Posted: 30 Jun 2016 04:00 AM PDT No, this isn't a scene from the Neatorama corporate office (although that's a reasonable guess). It's from Belarus. Recently, Alexander Lukashenko, the dictator of that nation, accidentally said at a conference that citizens should "get undressed and work." The Telegraph reports:
Belarusians snapped to attention and did precisely that. They got naked, then got to work (or possibly the reverse), and posted images of the results on social media. There's a hashtag on Instagram to that effect that is just barely compliant with Instagram's no-nudity rule. | ||||||||
| Market Street, San Francisco, 1906 Posted: 30 Jun 2016 02:00 AM PDT On April 14, 1906, brothers Harry and Herbert Miles filmed the scene as they rode a cable car down Market Street in San Francisco. You see the hustle and bustle of the city with trolley cars, pedestrians, automobiles, and horse-drawn wagons sharing the street. It's on the left of this video. Four days later, an earthquake killed 3,000 people and destroyed most of the city. A cameraman believed to be Otis M. Gove filmed the same street just after the destruction. The film on the right is not as clear due to dust and smoke, but you can see the destroyed buildings and the survivors shuffling through the streets as if they were ghosts. You have to wonder how many of the people seen in the video on the left did not survive the quake. -via History Buff | ||||||||
| A Man And His Chicken Travel around the World Posted: 29 Jun 2016 11:59 PM PDT
This is Monique and her father, Guirec Soudée. Together, they're sailing around the world on a 39-foot boat. Monique is adopted. Soudée, a native of Brittany in France, is a sailor by trade. In 2014, while docked in the Canary Islands, Soudée received Monique as a gift. Their relationship developed quickly and Soudée decided to keep her on his boat. Modern Farmer reports:
You can follow their adventures on Instagram. | ||||||||
| Posted: 29 Jun 2016 10:59 PM PDT Friday is Canada Day, so you’d better start planning your celebration now. Even if you aren’t from Canada, it’s a great way to begin a holiday weekend, which will end with the US Independence Day holiday on Monday. This cake is named after Canada Day, as it resembles the Canadian flag somewhat. It’s two layers each of white cake and red velvet cake, covered in buttercream frosting in both red and white. Get the instructions at The Kitchen Magpie. This is one item from a list of red and white desserts for Canada Day at Buzzfeed. | ||||||||
| Amazing 3d Printed Zoetrope Shows a Dancer in Motion Posted: 29 Jun 2016 09:59 PM PDT
It's an incredible work of creativity and 3d design. Akinori Goto designed a zoetrope so that it shows a dancer at work when a narrow band of light is projected through it. He used a 3d printer to create this complex work that required precise measurements to work properly. It flows perfectly and gracefully when activated, even though it looks like just a mass of 3d filament when it's turned off. This is one of at least two zoetropes that Goto has created. You can see the other at Colossal. -via Swiss Miss | ||||||||
| America's First "Climate Refugees" Posted: 29 Jun 2016 09:00 PM PDT Between rising sea levels, delta engineering, and environmental damage by oil companies, Louisiana is losing dry land at an alarming rate. The community of Isle de Jean Charles has seen the wetlands turn to water, and the dry land shrink away. This is home to about 60 members of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indian tribe, who must soon find a new home and a new way of life as their island melts away.
The July-August issue of Smithsonian magazine looks at Isle de Jean Charles and other disappearing areas in southern Louisiana in pictures by Ben Depp, which you can see online now. (Image credit: Ben Depp) | ||||||||
| Posted: 29 Jun 2016 08:00 PM PDT Fiesta the llama lives at the Houston Zoo in Texas. Every morning, zookeepers use a leaf blower to clean out her stall. Fiesta lets them, but first she insists on an air massage. Watch her roll around with delight in front of it. Zookeepers tell ABC 13 News that this has been her daily ritual for about 2 years. -via Tastefully Offensive | ||||||||
| Posted: 29 Jun 2016 07:00 PM PDT A nice, sturdy ceramic vase is the best way to show off your garden flowers or the bouquet someone gave you. The Wig Vase by designer Tania da Cruz is more -it’s an opportunity for a bunch of flowers to come to life! Too bad it costs $315. See more pictures that give a sense of what you can do with this vase at Incredible Things. -via Everlasting Blort | ||||||||
| Special Wheels Let This Car Roll in Any Direction Posted: 29 Jun 2016 06:00 PM PDT
Inventor William Liddiard names them after himself, calling them Liddiard Wheels. They can attach to any car. In this case, it's Liddiard's own Toyota Echo. The tires roll horizontally, moving the car sideways. He writes:
It's the perfect solution to parallel parking challenges. -via Gizmodo | ||||||||
| Wagon Ride - You Shouldn't Have To Force Kids To Have Fun Posted: 29 Jun 2016 05:00 PM PDT There's nothing like taking a ride on a wagon pulled by your dear old dad, especially when he actually uses his gloved hands to pull you along instead of using the Force. It's great to spend time with the old helmet head, and when he decides to take a day off from controlling the Imperial forces to reconnect with his kids every second of that day is priceless. Of course, kids want to feel like they're the stars of this sci-fi family show, but daddy Darth keeps taking calls from that awful Emperor fellow, so it's only natural for them to feel like rebelling... Celebrate fatherhood in all its many forms with this Wagon Ride t-shirt by Dooomcat, it's an adorable way to declare your love for the first fractured family of sci-fi! Visit Dooomcat's Facebook fan page and official website, then head on over to her NeatoShop for more geek-tastic designs:
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! | ||||||||
| Norway Built A World-Record-Setting Bonfire Last Weekend Posted: 29 Jun 2016 04:59 PM PDT Ålesund, Norway, is the site of a Midsummer Festival called Slinningsbålet that traditionally includes a bonfire. The bonfire tends to be bigger each year, and this year’s stack of pallets and kindling was 155.5 (47.4 meters) feet tall! That’s a world record. The structure is built by hand on a spit of land out in the bay, and fire department boats stand by for safety. The fire is lit at the top, which means someone has to climb all the way up, and then all the way back down in a hurry. You can see a video of the tower’s construction and destruction here. The burning begins about four minutes in. -via Atlas Obscura | ||||||||
| Vegan Realizes He Accidentally Ate Cheese, Loses His Mind Posted: 29 Jun 2016 03:59 PM PDT What happens when someone who has carefully adhered to a vegan diet for years accidentally eats an animal product such as meat or cheese? They may have a stomach ache or an allergic reaction, which may be why they went vegan in the first place, but the guy in this video clearly went vegan for the cool points- and he has the t-shirt to prove it. (fast forward to 16:10 to see him throw a NSFW fit) POWSIMIAN probably should have asked for a comprehensive list of ingredients before letting his mommy order him a pizza... -Via some videos | ||||||||
| This Champion Bodybuilder Is 80 Years Old Posted: 29 Jun 2016 03:00 PM PDT
80! She looks like this and is 80 years old! How is that even possible?! Ernestine Shepherd will tell you. She gets up at 3 AM every morning to pray and meditate. Then she runs 10 miles--except during marathon-training season, when she runs further. After that warmup, she heads to the gym to begin her workout. When she's not exercising, she's training other people to get into shape. She's worked as a professional nutritionist, so she knows how to keep her body in perfect running order. Shepherd began bodybuilding at the youthful age of 71. In 2010, Guinness World Records named her the world's oldest female bodybuilder. She says that "age is nothing but a number"--and clearly demonstrates the truth of that adage. | ||||||||
| Tiny Sticky Note Nightmares By John Kenn Mortensen Posted: 29 Jun 2016 02:00 PM PDT Sticky notes are the preferred communication method of office workers and those who live a cubicle bound life, little memos meant for the waste basket. But the amazing(ly tiny) black ink illustrations drawn on sticky notes by John Kenn Mortensen are breaking out of the office bin and heading for a gallery wall. John somehow manages to cram lots of loathsome detail, a cast of creepy characters and a truly terrifying tale all in one pale yellow Post-It Note. The moral of John's tiny tales? Don't look behind you, unless you're looking for a good scare... See more Tiny Nightmarish Illustrations Drawn On Sticky Notes here | ||||||||
| Posted: 29 Jun 2016 01:00 PM PDT With a holiday weekend coming up, and summer vacations planned, you might want to check out any museums along the way while you travel. John Green is here to let you in on some things you might not know about museums in general, and some things about specific museums, too, in the latest episode of the mental_floss List Show. | ||||||||
| Child With Raft On His Head Photoshopped Into Strange Predicaments Posted: 29 Jun 2016 11:59 AM PDT Some photos chosen for Photoshop competitions would actually benefit from a little digital modification, but this picture of a goofy looking kid with a raft on his head is pure gold on its own. Which is why it's actually perfect for a Photoshop battle, because that kid looks like he's in need of some equally goofy looking friends. Photoshop can help Raft Boy achieve his dreams without the usual real life complications, allowing him to become the youngest ballerino at the Bolshoi despite his lack of formal training It can also help Raft Boy grow up to a be a bright, bold and healthy boy rich in vitamin D And may get him the dog he's always wanted Being a part of the PsBattle may be the best thing that ever happened to little Raft Boy, but hopefully the internet fame won't go to his head or he may become a little terror See more from Challenge: Photoshop This Child With A Raft On His Head here | ||||||||
| 20 Heroes, Villains, Aliens, and Monsters Who Ran for President Posted: 29 Jun 2016 11:00 AM PDT You can make jokes about comic book characters running for president, and indeed, we make those jokes every four years, but this is about real comic books. Or, mostly comic books, while some TV shows are included. The idea of a super villain running for office is a great plot device for instilling fear into the populace, so it happens a lot. Meanwhile, superheroes run, too, and they have a distinct advantage among voters. Sadly, that usually happens in an “alternate universe.” Read about 20 such candidates, including Loki, who is running this year, at io9. -via the Presurfer | ||||||||
| McDonald's Cheeseburger Meal + Juicer = The Ultimate Unhappy Meal Posted: 29 Jun 2016 10:00 AM PDT French fries are usually the best part of a meal from McDonald's, but getting them from your face to your stomach (along with a cheeseburger or two) requires a lot of chewing. So wouldn't it be easier to skip all that jaw work and suck it all down like a smoothie? (Barely NSFW due to language) The culinary madmen from the YouTube channel BAD THINGS FOR BAD PEOPLE tested the theory by throwing McDonald's cheeseburgers and fries into a juicer to create the ultimate Unhappy Meal- Junk Juice. -Via BuzzFeed | ||||||||
| The Humiliating Practice of Sex-Testing Female Athletes Posted: 29 Jun 2016 08:59 AM PDT
Ever since women began participating in world-class sports competitions, winners have been suspected of not being “female enough.” Sex testing has ramped up in the past 50 years, although sports authorities and scientists disagree on whether and how they should be done, what the results mean, and what standards should be enforced. The I.A.A.F. and the International Olympic Committee are particularly on the lookout for men masquerading as woman for competition, although they have never caught an imposter. What they’ve found are intersex women with various physical conditions that they never suspected, but which derailed their athletic careers.
Later, the standard for identifying athletes by sex was changed to testosterone levels, which is also problematic. There is a condition in which a woman produces an unusual amount of testosterone, but it doesn’t give her an athletic boost because her cells are unable to use it. So even though she has no advantage from the hormone, the level could exclude her from competition. In other cases, young women have agreed to surgery to regain eligibility in sports. | ||||||||
| Posted: 29 Jun 2016 08:00 AM PDT There are so many options for this chandelier design! You can fill the test tubes with colored liquids, as you see above. You can also stick flowers or colored stones inside—then change them all to suit your mood. Pani Jurek, an artist from Warsaw, Poland, has a great idea for creative homeowners who want fresh options and adaptability. | ||||||||
| The Real Six-Pack - Exercise Your Right To Party Posted: 29 Jun 2016 07:00 AM PDT Some guys and guybots like to lift heavy stuff to get buff, but Bender knows the real secret to success in the gym- get blind, stinking drunk. That way you'll be working your muscles, or servos as the case may be, and you won't even know it. Of course, accidents do happen when one has been drinking, but take it from Bender- whatever can't be repaired, replaced or rebuilt wasn't worth having in the first place! Send the right message when you go to the gym, wear this The Real Six-Pack t-shirt by Raffiti and get pumped the Bender Rodriguez way! Visit Raffiti's Facebook fan page, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more delightfully geeky designs:
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! | ||||||||
| 10 Fictional Weapons from Movies Becoming a Reality Now Posted: 29 Jun 2016 06:59 AM PDT It has become pretty common that ideas from fiction serve as inspiration for real-world innovation. That works for weapons as well as the tech that makes our lives better. It’s a real thrill to see a hi-tech super-destructive new weapon in a science fiction action film, as it provides a challenge for our heroes. But in real life, they could have devastating consequences. Like a freeze ray. Supposedly impractical, delving into the technology of such a weapon has wide-ranging implications.
Read about other weapons from fiction that are coming to the real world at Money Inc. | ||||||||
| Rare Footage Of Bruce Lee's Teacher Yip Man Training Days Before His Death Posted: 29 Jun 2016 05:59 AM PDT Bruce Lee was such an incredible martial artist people often assume he was born with his fighting skills, but just like every other warrior before him Bruce had to go through intense training to achieve greatness. And many would argue that without the training Bruce received from his teacher Yip Man he would not have become such an accomplished martial artist. Yip Man (the inspiration for the action movie series IP Man) was a master teacher of Wing Chun and a legendary fighter, but the world had barely gotten to know the man before he died in December,1972. Incredibly, Yip died just seven months before Bruce Lee, and as this rare video footage shows Yip continued to practice his Wing Chun forms until the very day he died. Sons Ip Chun and Ip Ching followed in their father's footsteps and become famous martial artists in their own right, even though they were always overshadowed by dad's legendary student Bruce. -Via The Vintage News |
The Pratt-Smoot Act
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bum-length—30 minutes per side—but the quality of the sound produced was closer to talk radio than music. In other words, it was perfect for books.
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A version of this post by Ernie Smith originally 
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