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Thursday, December 6, 2012

Neatorama

Posted by KeepHoliness at 5:10 AM

Neatorama

This Snake Is Ready to Star In An Anime

Posted: 06 Dec 2012 04:00 AM PST

Admittedly, he's not exactly cute, but as fat as snakes go, it's pretty much as close as you can get. That's because he has such awesomely freakishly huge eyes and an incredibly thin, long body -making him look like the supermodel of the reptile world.

Interestingly, this uniquely lanky creature was only recently discovered. You can learn more about the fascinating snake over at io9.

Link

Gandalf Playing The Bagpipe While Riding A Unicycle

Posted: 06 Dec 2012 03:00 AM PST

(YouTube Link)

Gandalf is all sorts of excited about The Hobbit adaptation coming to the big screen, so he dusted off his bagpipe, pumped up his unicycle tire and took to the streets to spread the word.

Best video moment- the guy in pink chasing after Gandalf, seemingly about to start a fantastic quest of his own!

--via Stuff I Stole From The Internet

Previously: More of the Unipiper

Hello Kitty Plush Head Christmas Stocking

Posted: 06 Dec 2012 02:00 AM PST

Hello Kitty Plush Head Christmas Stocking - $24.95

The Christmas season is here! Are you looking for the purr-fect stocking to hand by your chimney with care? You need the Hello Kitty Plush Head Christmas Stocking from the NeatoShop. This adorable stocking features Hello Kitty wearing a Santa hat and a sequined red bow. It makes a fantastic gift for any Hello Kitty lover. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Hello Kitty items. 

Link

Mannequin Lamps

Posted: 06 Dec 2012 02:00 AM PST

lamps

Industrial designer Daniel Love must love his work because he clearly has so much fun with it. His furniture is constantly at play. If you're not careful, some of his pieces, like these lamps, may even walk away.

Link -via Core77

Creepiest Christmas Decorations

Posted: 06 Dec 2012 01:00 AM PST

You might be wondering why we've posted an article about Christmas decorations on our Halloween blog, well here goes- the decorations on this list are so creepy that people should just use them as Halloween decorations instead.

Putting up creepy Christmas decorations is a festive way to ruin childhoods, it's no wonder kids start crying when they see Santa!

Link

<i>Star Trek</i> Christmas Tree Topper

Posted: 06 Dec 2012 12:00 AM PST

Christmas Tree

All I ask is a tall tree and a star to steer her by. In a transporter accident, Captain Kirk's chair became fused with redditor Wizard_Glick's Christmas tree topper. I can't think of anyone else I'd rather have in command of my Christmas tree.

Link

Whatever Happened to Bubbles?

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 11:00 PM PST

vMichael Jackson's chimpanzee Bubbles is now 29 years old, and lives in a shelter in Florida. Expenses are around $20,000 per ape, so Bubbles is contributing two of his abstract paintings to an exhibit called "Endangered" at Art Basel Miami Beach. You can have one for $1,500. There are quite a few other former show-biz apes at the Center for Great Apes.

In captivity, chimpanzees can live to be 60, orangutans 50. Yet by around six years old, all had reached the ends of their careers, growing too big and too strong-willed to manage.

Bubbles’s story is typical in this respect. Born in a laboratory in Texas in 1983 and raised by humans, he was sent to join the other chimps in his trainer’s compound when he became too much for the pop star.

“He’s had a really tough time,” says Casey Taylor, who turned her back on a law career to become the sanctuary’s communications and development coordinator.

“He didn’t know how to be a chimp. There’s a serious social structure with these animals -- you have to know the chimp rules. He mentally shut down.”

But now Bubbles is the dominant chimp in his group, although he sometimes reverts to acting like a spoiled child. Read more about Bubbles and the other apes at Bloomberg. Link -via Flavorwire

Swedish Bus Stops Now Offer Light Therapy to Commuters

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 10:00 PM PST

During the winter, northern Sweden gets only a few hours of sunshine a day. So an energy company in the town of Umeå placed light panels in bus stops to help commuters combat seasonal effective disorder:

The snow has not yet settled, and as a result the city is even darker than usual, something the energy company wants to fight artificially.

“Umeå residents both own us and are our customers and we believe we all need to be re-energized when it gets like this," Ernstson continued. 

"Even though it snowed today, the sun had set by 2pm. People need to get their vitamin D somehow!” 

Link -via Uncornered Market | Photo: Umeå Energy

Memorize

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 09:00 PM PST

(vimeo link)

In a not-too-distant but disturbingly violent future, brain implants record everything you see, and holographic cops can check them to see what you've been doing. This low-budget Swedish short by Eric Ramberg and Jimmy Eriksson has the potential to become a feature film. -Thanks, Jimmy and Eric!

Prisoner Digs Hole in Wall, Gets Stuck While Trying to Escape

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 08:00 PM PST

prisoner

What we've got here is failure to lose weight. That was something that Rafael Valadão should have done before boring a hole through the wall of a prison in Ceres, Brazil. That or dig a bigger hole.

Rafael Valadão, the well-built tattooed convict, tried to follow one of his smaller fellow prisoners who had already made a bid for freedom through the gap.

But he was left screaming for help when he became wedged while others tried to force him through the hole they had made with a metal shower pipe. [...]

He was left with his upper body hanging outside of the prison while he was trapped by the hole in the wall around his midriff.

He was rescued after firemen smashed through the rest of the wall and is now being treated for a suspected fractured rib.

Link -via Dave Barry | Photo: Jornal Populacional 

Electronic Tree in Brussels

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 07:00 PM PST

v

After many years of installing a natural Christmas tree in the main public square of Brussels, Belgium, the tree this year is artificial, abstract, and electronic.  

An enormous abstract Christmas tree has been unveiled at the center of Brussels, though some are displeased with the city's modern take on holiday tradition. Created by French collective 1024 Architecture, the "Abies Electronicus" is an 82-foot steel-ribbed installation that replaces the real pine tree typically on display at the city's central square. Every night, the structure comes to life with a light and sound show, replete with shimmering lights, glowing cubes, and a mix of both holiday and industrial music. And unlike traditional trees, visitors can actually climb to the top of the Abies Electronicus for a panoramic view of the city.

Some citizens are not pleased with the structure, preferring a traditional tree. You can see a video of the tree changing colors. Link -via Buzzfeed

Snow Flakes and Ice Structures

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 06:00 PM PST


Photos: Andrew Osokin

Check out these beautiful images of snow flakes and other ice structures thanks to Russian photographer Andrew Osokin. On his LensArt profile he has some really beautiful pictures, and over 480 of them so take your time and look.

Link | Via Colossal

Pizza Hut Perfume

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 05:00 PM PST

Yes, it's a real thing. Pizza Hut Canada made 100 bottles of perfume featuring the scent pizza.

Here's the full story: Grip Limited, an advertising firm that works with Pizza Hut Canada, originally originally floated the tongue-in-cheek notion on the Pizza Hut Canada Facebook page back in August as part of a broader push to promote more engaging social media activity. The post asked fans to dream up names for an imaginary scent inspired by "the smell of a box of Pizza Hut pizza being opened." But the fan response to the idea was so enthusiastic that Grip and Pizza Hut decided to make the perfume a reality.

A month and a half later, to commemorate the fact that Pizza Hut Canada had gotten 100,000 fans, the chain's community managers announced that the first 100 people to message them would actually get a bottle of Pizza Hut perfume. And sure enough, the bottles were shipped to those 100 lucky fans at the beginning of December.

There are no plans to make more -yet. Of course, if the demand is there, they still have the formula. Link -via Fark

Beast Bust

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 04:00 PM PST

Beast Bust - $99.00

The holiday season is here. Are you still hunting for the perfect gift for your favorite Disney lover. Behold the Beast Bust from the NeatoShop. This highly detailed sculpture features Beast from Beauty and the Beast. Below him is the enchanted rose that is losing its petals.  

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Collectibles. 

Link

The History of Peanut Butter: A Crunchy March of Progress

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 04:00 PM PST

peanut butter and bacon sandwich

That all-American food, peanut butter, began with the devastation of American cotton by the boll weevil and the cultivation of peanuts as an alternative cash crop. As America advanced in the world, so did peanut butter. Jon Krampner wrote Creamy and Crunchy, a history of peanut butter. In the New Yorker, Jon Michaud summarized and reviewed it. Here's how two of the three major brands developed:

Peter Pan, introduced in 1928, was the first dominant national peanut butter. It used a partial-hydrogenation process patented by Joseph Rosefield, an entrepreneur from Lexington, Kentucky. In 1932, after Peter Pan’s parent company sought to cut his licensing fee, Rosefield ended the partnership and started making his own brand: Skippy. Inventive and obsessed with quality control, Rosefield emerges as perhaps the most important and likable figure in the history of peanut butter. By the end of his career, he held ten patents relating to the food and numerous notable innovations. He set up his own research lab and conceived a new way of churning—rather than grinding—his peanuts to produce a smoother texture. By introducing fragments of crushed peanuts into his butter, he invented crunchy—or chunky, if you prefer. He instituted the wide-mouth jar that has been standard ever since. And he paid his employees well, to boot. Five years before Reese’s created its peanut-butter cup, Rosefield brought Choc-Nut Butter to market. He seems to have been a little too far ahead of the curve in combining peanuts and chocolate: the product failed. Nevertheless, Skippy thrived, overtaking Peter Pan in the late forties and remaining the nation’s favorite until 1980.

Link -via American Digest | Photo: arnold inuyaki

Hypothermia-Inducing Films

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 03:00 PM PST

The temperature where I am is about 65 degrees, which is odd for December. It's hard to get into the Christmas spirit amidst global warming, but there's always movies to put you in the mood. However, if you're looking for something without the sugary sweetness of Christmas family films, you might try movies that "revolve around cold, and snow, and hypothermia and madness." Five of them are detailed at Unreality. Pictured here is the “snow-nazi-zombie” movie Dead Snow. Link

Steampunk Keyboard

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 02:00 PM PST


Photo: Rampkins

At only $575 dollars this steampunk keyboard is just almost worth it. I mean it's a steampunk Buccaneer Mk2 keyboard. It has a leather embossed backing, wooden keys, a solid walnut frame with antique finish, intricate brasswork and all other kinds of steampunky goodness.


Photo: Rampkins

Link | Via Nerd Bastards

Fellowship of the Ringwraiths

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 01:30 PM PST

(YouTube link)

The Ringwraiths were terrifying, but they didn't have a lot of screen time in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Here you see what they were doing offscreen during the rest of the story. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Giant Game Boy

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 01:00 PM PST


Photo: MaboroshiTira

Deviantartist MaboroshiTira really likes Game Boys. So much so that she built a giant cardboard one, I don't really know for what purpose but it's still cool. No it doesn't work, you can't play Dragon Warrior 3 on it, but all the buttons are push-able and the on/off switch and volume dial both turn.

If you could play with a giant (working) Game Boy, what game would you play?


Photo: MaboroshiTira

Link | Via Obvious Winner

R.I.P. Dave Brubeck

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 12:30 PM PST

(YouTube link)

Jazz musician and composer Dave Brubeck died this morning due to heart failure. If you don't know the musician, you know his works, such as the classic "Take Five." Shown here is the song performed in Berlin in 1966, with Brubeck on the piano.

Throughout his career, Brubeck defied conventions long imposed on jazz musicians. The tricky meters he played in “Take Five” and other works transcended standard conceptions of swing rhythm.

The extended choral/symphonic works he penned and performed around the world took him well outside the accepted boundaries of jazz. And the concerts he brought to colleges across the country in the 1950s shattered the then-long-held notion that jazz had no place in academia.

Read more about the jazz pioneer in his obituary at the Chicago tribune. Brubeck would have turned 92 years old tomorrow. Link -via Metafilter

What The British Say And What They Mean

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 12:00 PM PST


Photo: Today I Learned Something New

I checked the office twice, no one here is British so I can't confirm exactly how accurate this is. That being said, I am picturing all my favorite English movies and characters and it plays out pretty well. Like Simon Pegg from Shaun of the Dead or Stanley Kubrick from A Clockwork Orange or even Harry Potter from.. well you know. I don't know about you guys but I read this out loud (without thinking) and in my best British accent. My favorite line is probably "could we consider some other options."

Any English followers out there that can confirm this guide?

Link

We Wish You A Merry X(terminate)mas

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 11:30 AM PST

(Video Link)

The only people who can spend Christmas with the Daleks are The Doctor and his companions. Anyone else is destined to be wiped off the planet, so I hope the guys singing this song either don't get their Christmas wish or become friends with a mad man in a box before the 25th.

Via The Daily What

Assessing Gluteal Hardness in Uniformed Security Guards

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 11:00 AM PST

vThe following is an article from the Annals of Improbable Research.

by Peter Freundlich The Peter Freundlich Institute New York City, New York
Photographs by S. Drew, AIR staff

The author of this study has often been an object of intense study by Uniformed Private Security Guards. In response, he has spent much time in turn studying them and their behavior. Here is the fruit of that study. Read it, and you will have a clear understanding of the concept of Gluteal Hardness.

Private Parts of Behavior
If in the course of doing whatever it is you are doing, you are approached not by a police officer but by a UPSG, then you are not, as you may have thought you were, on public but on private property, and this is a critical difference, because on public property you are up against the law, which is hard and fast and applies equally to everyone. Whereas on private property you’re up against not the law but “rules.” Many spaces that may seem public (and are sometimes for that reason in fact called “quasi-public”) -- plazas, atriums, outdoor cafes, areas adjacent to the sidewalk, walkways leading to lobbies -- are in fact controlled by institutions, corporations, landlords, universities, and so forth. The police enforce the law, as we’ve said, but they have no interest in corporate and institutional “rules.” This is where private security forces -- and the tap on the shoulder -- come in.

vLet’s stipulate, as the lawyers say, that there is no point arguing against “the rules.” For one thing, you don’t know what they are. They have been propounded by shareholders, board members, alumni, executive vice presidential conference committees, and cabals of maintenance and security men, and are published -- if published at all -- in employee policy handbooks unavailable to you (and unread by those to whom they are available). In sum, the rules are what “they” say they are -- and there you are. But -- and this is the nub of the current study -- not all uniformed security guards are equally inclined to make an issue of these so-called rules. Far from it. This being the case, what you need to be able to do is to quickly assess the degree to which an individual UPSG will be inclined to get in your face.

Luckily, this is not as daunting as it seems. In fact, it’s rather simple. I herewith offer you the fruits of my long experience in the area of gauging GH (Gluteal Hardness) in security guards. Just follow these few straightforward guidelines, and you will quickly be able to tell whether or not a particular UPSG is inclined to make trouble, or to “let it slide, this one time, if you don’t do it again.”

vGuidelines
GENDER. Women are relative newcomers to the private security game and so (as is true in many other walks of life) many of them still have something to prove. This results in a very high GH rating. All other things being equal, you are much better off tangling with a male than with a female security guard.

AGE. By and large, the younger, the better, for the purposes under discussion. Younger men are “only doing this for the summer,” or for “a hoot.” They tend to get a kick out of almost being taken seriously, and security work is a step up from mending bicycle tires. The older the guard, however, the more likely the work is a step down -- from the police force (twenty years on the psycho- bunko squad) or, worse yet, the military (two tours in ‘Nam, and a couple of decades of rehab). These are guys who have known real power, and are in no mood to take crap from the likes of you. (Just for definitional purposes, “crap” is anything you open your mouth to say.)

DEGREE OF UNIFORM (General). A guard wearing the full kit -- hat, jacket, shirt and tie, matching slacks, and company-issue shoes -- has the highest GH rating, and is almost guaranteed to get in your face. The more complete the formality, in other words, the greater the problem.

vDEGREE OF UNIFORM (Specific). Interestingly enough, the removal of the hat makes no difference whatever to the GH rating, although the removal of the jacket does. A further easing of Gluteal Hardness has been documented when the hat, jacket and tie all are dispensed with. Now you have a SSPSG (Shirt-sleeved Private Security Guard), who is likely to be amenable to
joshing, sweet-talk, and other forms of hail-fellow-well- met badinage. Bear in mind, however, that an SSPSG with embroidered patches on his sleeves and a walkie-talkie clipped to his shirt above the breast pocket is in fact a FUPSG (Fully Uniformed Private Security Guard) in disguise. Do not attempt badinage at all with a crypto-FUPSG.

HAIR. Less hair, higher GH, from shave-pates (bald women are 2.3 times as bad as bald men) to buzz, brush, and crewcuts, to “normal-length,” mullet, and pony-tailed. If ever you run into a security guard with a blue Mohawk, deal with him as you would deal with a golden retriever: Throw him a treat and then ignore him.

WIDTH OF BELT. If you are in a sticky situation and do not have time for a full assessment of a guard’s trouble-making propensities, this is the single best detail on which to concentrate. Anything noticeably wider than the average dress belt (about an inch, give or take) is a sign of what may be extreme GH, regardless of how the guard in question scores in any of the other areas covered above. Belts that are three, four and five inches wide suggest past careers in areas (law enforcement, the armed forces, piano moving, professional wrestling) you are almost certainly not equipped to deal with. Also be aware that a belt of an otherwise acceptable width, when fitted with a bizarre outsized buckle advertising some sort of institutional allegiance, is as much a warning sign as a garrison or weight-lifter’s belt.

BELT ACCOUTREMENTS. The number of things hanging from a guard’s belt is directly proportionate to his inclination to enforce the rules. For one thing, you can’t hang much from a normal-width belt (see above for a discussion of belt-width.) For another thing, as trappings are added to the belt (two-way radio; Leatherman tool; flashlight the size of a Genoa salami; large, menacing but entirely mysterious rubberized articles; spray cans in customized holsters; Magic Marker tricked out to look like a truncheon; spiral-bound stainless-steel notebook), the guard’s comfort and walk both are affected, and an uncomfortable UPSG with a bowlegged John Wayne gait is always more trouble than one who is comfortable and light footed. Also, since the accoutrements are largely the guard’s own idea, they provide a very clear indication of how he sees the scope and importance of his duties. When the waistband itself is hardly visible anymore under the gizmos hanging from and clipped to it -- when, in other words, it amounts to a facsimile of Batman’s belt of wonders -- then you are dealing with a man who feels called upon to be ready for an enemy invasion, much less some puny rule-bender like yourself. Imagine a fully-armed big game hunter, frustrated in his attempt to bag an elephant, suddenly bothered by a bug. He is going to be vicious to that bug. In this circumstance, you are the bug.

Summary
Gluteal Hardness is simple to gauge, at least in security guards. The parameters of interest are: gender; age; fullness of uniform; visibility of scalp; and belt- width and -trappings. The values of these parameters reliably distinguish a guard who is basically strolling over to say hello in case his supervisor is watching from a guard who’d shoot you if he could.


A security guard at Nottingham Trent University engages Ig Nobel Prize winner Pek Van Andel in a discussion about some mysterious objects. Moments earlier, Dr. Van Andel had wandered
into the office, handed the objects to the guard, and asked “Good sir, do you happen to know what these are?” Dr. Van Andel and several other Ig Nobel winners were visiting the university as part of the 2005 Ig Nobel Tour of the UK, in celebration of the UK’s National Science Week. The objects, it turned out, were dried bull penises.

_____________________

vThis article is republished with permission from the May-June 2005 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!

Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.

Japanese Sound Effect Rings

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 10:30 AM PST

Want to live inside a manga? Designers Shuji Tomishima and Takushi Okina can help. They created rings that look like how sound effects are depicted in Japanese comics. You can see more pictures of them at the link.

Link | Designers' Website

A Christmas Story Leg Lamp Stocking

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 10:14 AM PST

A Christmas Story Leg Lamp Stocking - $11.95

The holiday season is here. It's time to deck the harrs with boughs or horry and hang your A Christmas Story Leg Lamp Stocking from the NeatoShop by the chimney with care. Fa rar ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra. 

Be sure to check out the Neatoshop for more great A Christmas Story items and great Christmas stuff. 

Link

The Power of Youth

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 10:00 AM PST

(YouTube link)

A talented countertenor busker in Krakow, Poland, has a child, or more likely a grandchild, who wants to follow in his footsteps. The baby sure knows the song well! -via Arbroath

Feathers in Flight

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 09:30 AM PST

With precision tools, American artist Chris Maynard cuts out and sculpts images from feathers:

feathers are structural wonders, serving many functions. they also suggest important universal themes. feathers are my medium. they are an ultimate achievement of nature and a pinnacle of wonder. after feathers perform their functions on birds, they are molted yearly but keep their beauty and complexity. I want to show feathers in a different light, off the bird.  I enjoy highlighting aspects of a feather's form, pattern or color. if I am successful, I hope to convey some intimate sense of the bird that grew the feathers...feathers are one of life's perfect wonders; with this in mind, the three dimensional forms, colors, and shapes are preserved as they were on the birds they came from.

Link -via Junkculture | Artist's Website

14 Terrible Christmas Presents For 14 Terrible People

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 09:00 AM PST

Sometimes you buy Christmas presents out of obligation, like the annual name-drawing at your workplace, or some such event. What to get when you don't care to send the very best? Jill Harness came up with some fine suggestions, as long as you keep your tongue in your cheek. These gifts are all readily available, and will surely point out the recipient's faults in a public way. However, some of them might actually be useful to someone you love, but only if they request the product. Shown here is a set of garters for wannabe gangsters who want to strut around with low-slung pants, but can't keep their jeans in place. The rest are just as funny! Link

This Bunny is Disappointed With His Holiday Meal

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 08:30 AM PST

Even bunnies know that Thanksgiving  feasts are supposed to feature turkey and this veggie-loaded holiday meal just wasn't up to snuff. In fact, this little guy even had a hard time swallowing his first meatless bite.

Link

You Had One Job, Physics!

Posted: 05 Dec 2012 08:00 AM PST


(Video Link)

What's happening in this mind-bending video? It just gets weirder as it progresses. Watch Rube Goldberg and Isaac Newton battle each other in this video by David Dvir. How did Dvir do it? With magnets and optical illusions.

Link -via Colossal 

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