Neatorama

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• The Great Japanese Embassy Hoax of 1860
• Life Lessons From Beekeepers
• The Entire Map Of Breath Of The Wild Recreated In Minecraft
• From A Rescued Bear Cub To A Pet!
• Museum Visitors Who Accidentally Match The Artwork
• The Unnoticed Thing That Is In Every Shot Of The Shining
• Space Juggling
• Eye-Catching Cardboard Structures by Olivier Grossetête
• Shells, Coral, Quartz, Beach Sand, and Microplastic
• Dog Takes Good Care Of His Newborn Sister
• This Man Accidentally Recorded 682 Gigabytes of Video of Himself
• Racing with a Moose
• In Japan: Fukuoka City To Repaint Port Crane In Hopes To Cheer Up Kids In Hospital
• Proto-Cinema And How Prehistoric People Made Them
• What It’s Like To Live In The Olympic Village

The Great Japanese Embassy Hoax of 1860 Posted: 01 Aug 2021 02:35 PM PDT The picture above shows a Japanese delegation who visited America in 1860 to confirm a treaty with the United States. Sadly, we do not have a photograph of the delegation who visited Danville, Pennsylvania, on July 4 of that year. That group consisted of completely different people. On Independence Day of 1860, one of the most notable events in the history of Montour County took place-- a visit from Japanese royalty! Why Japanese royalty should want to pay a visit to the sleepy seat of Pennsylvania's smallest county never exactly crossed the minds of the excited local residents, and perhaps that is how one of the greatest and most elaborate hoaxes in Pennsylvania history came to fruition. The story of the great Japanese Embassy hoax might have remained forgotten in the dustbin of history had it not been for a New Yorker-- and former Danville resident named W.A.M. Grier-- who came across letters and documents pertaining to the "royal visit" while cleaning out his Brooklyn home decades later. In 1910, the Danville Morning News published Grier's account of the outrageous hoax for the benefit of those who had never heard about it. Apparently, most of the older residents had either forgotten about it, or were simply too embarrassed to admit that it had ever happened. Apparently, a group of the town's movers and shakers thought it would be fun to impersonate the Japanese delegation. The arrival of the "ambassadors" and their entourage meant a huge crowd at the train station, a parade, and an address to the townspeople through an interpreter at the courthouse square. Read how they did it and how well they pulled it off at Pennsylvania Oddities. -via Strange Company

Life Lessons From Beekeepers Posted: 01 Aug 2021 09:40 AM PDT How can we solve our current environmental problems? Aside from considering the practices of big time companies, the best chance we have at starting change is from our own homes. To reverse the existential threat, a recent report by the intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services (IPBES) recommended that we listen to Indigenous people and learn from the local community. Also, we could learn their relationship with the natural world, and get some ideas on how to solve or prevent major environmental disasters. In relation to these recommendations raised by the IPBES, the Conversation's Siobhan Maderson shared the lessons she learned from beekeepers, who are very in tune with their environment and would do their part in making sure the bees thrive in their environment. Check the full piece here! Image credit: wikimedia commons

The Entire Map Of Breath Of The Wild Recreated In Minecraft Posted: 01 Aug 2021 09:39 AM PDT The map in the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is massive. Because it is designed as an open world game, it has to hold vast landscapes for the player to explore. But how would Hyrule look outside the game's engine? Well, one Minecraft player has decided to test whether they could rebuild the entire map from Nintendo's modern classic as a playable Minecraft survival map:  CreatorDinaeh has been postingprogress shots onReddit, and the overall topography of the map is looking very close to the original. The project is being built with theWorldPainter tool at1:2 scale, and Dineah intends towork with other creators to build shrines and ruins to populate the map. And yes, a playable version isintended to be released – eventually. Dineah has posted some detailed shots of both the Gerudo Highlands and Hebra Mountains, and the latter in particular is instantly recognisable. That little grassy clearing ahead of the monstrous, snowy climb toward the encounter with Naydra created a big impression in Breath of the Wild, and it looks just as cool here, as you can see in the image above. Image via PCGamesN

From A Rescued Bear Cub To A Pet! Posted: 01 Aug 2021 09:39 AM PDT In a surprising and touching turn of events, a woman has managed to convince a bankrupt zoo to give her a bear cub! Veronika Dichka lives in Novosibirsk, Siberia, with her pet bear named Archie. Dichka adopted Archie when he was just a cub she learned that the bear would have no place to stay after the local zoo in North Siberia closed down:  Veronika said of her incredible relationship with the bear Archie in an Instagram post: "Archie sees me as a member of his family. We share food, he sleeps in my arms and when he's afraid and hides behind me. We rescued him from the bankrupt zoo but we cannot release him into the wild because he has lived in captivity all his life. Archie spends every day with us and is madly in love with the water. He really likes it when I take him to new places, so this session where we went fishing together was a real pleasure for him! " image:fishing_veronika/Instagram

Museum Visitors Who Accidentally Match The Artwork Posted: 01 Aug 2021 09:39 AM PDT They almost blend into the paintings! Photographer Stefan Draschan's ongoing project, titled People Matching Artworks, features museum visitors who accidentally match with the paintings displayed. It could be someone's hair, jacket, hat, or dress-- once they step and admire a certain artwork that sort of coordinates with their outfit, it's a snap! My Modern Met has more details:  People Matching Artworks is the epitome of patience. Though some of these pictures look staged, they are rather the result of Draschan staking a spot in a museum and waiting for the right person to stroll by. It's a secretive take onmuseum doppelgängers—a lighthearted activity in which people are actively posing with an artwork that resembles them. Draschan's project, in contrast, depicts the quiet beauty of looking, and it emphasizes how the act of getting dressed is an opportunity to be your own work of art. Draschan chronicles his series onTumblr andInstagram, where he also reveals where the museums that he visits. So, if you're local to institutions in Paris, Vienna, or Berlin, be on the lookout for Draschan and his camera! Image credit: Stefan Draschan

The Unnoticed Thing That Is In Every Shot Of The Shining Posted: 01 Aug 2021 09:39 AM PDT Red. It's the color red. Stanley Kubrick utilizes specific color palettes in all of his color films. From 2001: A Space Odyssey to Eyes Wide Shut, he uses different colors to show various states of being. For his horror film The Shining, Kubrick seems to have picked the color red-- as it was more than prominent throughout the film. The color becomes the harbinger of doom, as Looper details:  [...]As utilized by Kubrick in "The Shining," red becomes a harbinger of impending doom permeating every almost corner of the cursed Overlook as if blood itself were seeping through the haunted structure's every crevice. The culmination of that dramatic color palette is depicted in one of the film's most iconic scenes, when blood literally spills through the bright red doors of an elevator. As unforgettable as that scene is, the color is far more integral from a narrative standpoint in "The Shining" in the men's room of the hotel bar, where the walls are painted a vibrant red. That is, after all, where many believe Jack fully gives over to the blood-lusting spirits within the hotel and possibly those already within himself. The next time you're sitting down to endure another blood-curdling screening of "The Shining," see how much red you can spot before, ya know, the red stuff really starts to flow. image credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

Space Juggling Posted: 01 Aug 2021 09:39 AM PDT How does juggling work in space? The main thing you have to remember is that a ball thrown in the absence of gravity will not fall- it just goes in a straight line until something stops it. Physicist Adam Dipert is the Space Juggler. He explains how the idea came about. See more space juggling in this YouTube playlist. -via Metafilter

Eye-Catching Cardboard Structures by Olivier Grossetête Posted: 01 Aug 2021 09:38 AM PDT In 2015, a floating bridge made from cardboard suddenly appeared above the houses in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, France. The said bridge was held by giant helium balloons, and was created with the help of local residents. The residents then helped in demolishing the floating bridge afterwards. In 2017, another cardboard structure appeared, this time in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland. This time, the structure was not a bridge, but rather a leaning tower. Hundreds of people came to take a photo of the spectacular view. These installations, called "monumental constructions", were planned and directed by French artist Olivier Grossetête. Grossetête is able to build these "unusual, ephemeral and useless" structures in various places across the world with the help of local communities, who aid in both construction and demolition of the works. Check out photos of Grossetête's wonderful installations over at DesignBoom. (Image Credit: Olivier Grossetête/ DesignBoom) (Image Credit: Yverdon/ DesignBoom)

Shells, Coral, Quartz, Beach Sand, and Microplastic Posted: 01 Aug 2021 09:38 AM PDT Zooming in on beach sand is a colorful adventure. Thanks to coral debris and shells, beach sand is given vibrant colors, unlike dull industrial sand, which is mainly composed of quartz. But coral debris and shells are not the only things you can find in beach sand; you may also find microplastic embedded in it, when you view it under a microscope. This is what photographer Ole Bielfeldt, who goes by the name Macrofying in social media, found out. The image above shows us the objects that give beach sand its many colors. (Images Credit: Macrofying/ Colossal)

Dog Takes Good Care Of His Newborn Sister Posted: 01 Aug 2021 09:38 AM PDT It was finally time for Nick Elliot and his wife to bring home their newborn daughter, Macie. This meant that Tommy the Doberman would finally meet his little sister. But how would he react upon seeing the baby girl? Nick and his wife hoped that Tommy would be very loving to the new member of the family, just as he was to them. "We have had him around family and friends, toddlers and children in the past, and his whole character changes. He gets down to their level and just lies with them, letting them stroke him," Elliott told The Dodo. "He is so gentle and careful — it must be a natural instinct." And when that moment came, Elliot was delighted as things went exactly as he hoped. Tommy loved Macie. "[We] both greeted Tommy and got him settled before bringing Macie in," Elliott said. "We let him smell her worn clothes and told him 'gentle' ... we brought Macie in, and he was naturally really inquisitive and gentle." "It was like he instantly accepted her, as he always wanted to be close, but never touched her," he added. But Tommy did not just want to be close with Macie. He also wanted to take care of him, and he had that opportunity one day when Macie cried for a bottle of milk. Find out what happened over at The Dodo. (Image Credit: Nick Elliot/ The Dodo)

This Man Accidentally Recorded 682 Gigabytes of Video of Himself Posted: 01 Aug 2021 09:38 AM PDT Tom McKay was not pleased when he found out that his $36-dollar camera, which he bought from Amazon, did not have the capability to balance the exposure level properly. As his desk faces the window, his face gets lit up like that of Edward Cullen's (from Twilight). McKay then tried to fix this using the features present in Windows, but it still wasn't enough. His face still looks rather unsettling. That left me to find workarounds to manually adjust the camera feed. Most webcam software costs money, but I happened to have a free and open-source counterpart called Open Broadcaster Software Studio (OBS Studio) installed. I have to open up OBS Studio every time I want to use the webcam, but from there, it's a few clicks to fix the exposure settings and come up with a significantly less creepy Zoom Meeting Tom than the above. OBS Studio takes the feed directly from the camera and outputs it to a virtual webcam, which can then be chosen as the video source in any videoconferencing software. Exasperating, but this is what I get for going cheap on a webcam. But something strange started happening when he used the virtual webcam feature of OBS. His laptop would suddenly record him at random times. … in early June I was very alarmed to discover 442 gigabytes of footage of me sitting at my computer, as well as other clips of my cats and partner wandering around, had piled up in F:/Recordings. What was the reason behind this mystery? It turns out it was the default keyboard shortcuts in OBS. More about this story over at Gizmodo. (Image Credit: Tom McKay/ Gizmodo)

Racing with a Moose Posted: 01 Aug 2021 09:38 AM PDT A bike race in Colorado saw a moose join in! The moose stayed ahead of the pack for a good five minutes, but eventually tired a little. He finally realized that this mad gang wasn't pursuing him when they began to overtake him. That gave him enough confidence to stop. Or maybe he was just having fun, we don't know. -via Digg

In Japan: Fukuoka City To Repaint Port Crane In Hopes To Cheer Up Kids In Hospital Posted: 01 Aug 2021 09:09 AM PDT The city of Fukuoka wants to cheer up the kids in their local children's hospital, and one of the ways they thought of was to repaint one of their port cranes to make it look like a giant giraffe. The initiative, which was unveiled by the city's mayor over a week ago, is planned to be completed by February 2022, and is expected to cost about 100 million yen (about $900,000). The city has six cranes, and if the first one becomes popular, the city will consider painting the other five. Now this is wholesome. (Image Credit: Fukuoka City/ Spoon & Tamago)

Proto-Cinema And How Prehistoric People Made Them Posted: 01 Aug 2021 09:08 AM PDT A small group of prehistoric people went inside a cave now known as the Axturra Cave, located in Spain. Worming their way through passages, the group finally arrived at their destination: a 40-feet long limestone wall which stood eight feet above the cave floor. With their engraving tools, the group carved images of horses, bison, deer, and mountain goats. The question is, why? In 2015, two scientists rediscovered this masterpiece, now known as the Ledge of Horses, along with dozens of other carvings and paintings in other hard-to-reach corners of Atxurra Cave. Faded by time, some figures had nearly vanished. Researchers flooded the chambers with LED lights and took photographs, which they ran through software to detect elements not visible to human eyes. They recreated the art in digital form, allowing the modern word to behold it. But those artists of old did not have LED lights or any sort of modern lighting back when they made their masterpiece. What they had were torches with flickering light, and that may just be the key to how to look at the art in the same manner that these ancient people looked at it. Over the years, archaeologists have proposed that Paleolithic societies created the art as part of hunting rituals or psychedelic drug trips, or as historical records, teaching devices, or graphic novels, where a series of panels conveyed a continuous narrative. In some caves, animals or parts of their bodies are rendered several times, juxtaposed or superimposed in different positions. The light and shadows thrown by flames may have created the illusion that these figures were moving, according to some researchers, who call this art form "proto-cinema." At Chauvet for example, the painting of an eight-legged bison might have appeared, by torchlight, to be a four-legged animal striding across the wall. Marc Azéma, an archaeologist and filmmaker, made this case in his book La préhistoire du cinema [The Prehistory of the Cinema]. In 12 French caves, Azéma identified more than 50 animal figures that might have been drawn to look as if they were galloping, tossing their heads, or swishing their tails. "The flickering light, the dancing shadows, the warm glow from the fire, many people have argued that this creates a sense of theater, that you're looking at an ancient version of cinema," says University of Victoria archaeologist April Nowell. Nowell himself had this unforgettable experience when he and his colleagues went into the cave with their flame mimicking lamps. He tells his story over at Atlas Obscura. (Image Credit: Olivia Rivero and Maria Soto/ IÑAKI INTXAURBE/ Atlas Obscura)

What It’s Like To Live In The Olympic Village Posted: 01 Aug 2021 09:08 AM PDT What is it like to be an athlete currently living in the Olympic Village for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics? We know that the bed is made from cardboard, but what else is there? United States rugby player Cody Melphy shares with us on his TikTok some stuff inside the Olympic Village, and well, from what he shares, living there "just feels like a royal summer camp," according to a TikTok user. The Village is located in the Harumi waterfront district, so some of the rooms have amazing views to a beautiful skyline and Cody shows that he's one of those lucky people. Check out Melphy's stories inside the Olympic Village over at Bored Panda. (Image Credit: codymelphy/ Bored Panda)

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