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The Nietzsche Family Circus - 07/06/2008 06:47 PM

He who is punished is never he who performed the deed. He is always the scapegoat. The Nietzsche Family Circus is a randomized combination of Friedrich Nietzsche quotations and Family Circus cartoons — usually with appropriate results. Link

Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey’s Grassy Photograph - 07/06/2008 08:49 AM

UK artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey took advantage of the natural photosensitive nature of grass to use them as pixels in what we can only call a "photograss." CR Blog has more on this particular set of photos, commissioned by HSBC in partnership with the 2008 Wimbledon Tennis Championships: “When grass gets plenty of sunlight, it [...]

Couch Went Lawn Chair Ballooning - 07/06/2008 08:48 AM

Just because earlier attempts of lawnchair ballooning went so well (the first one by Larry Walters, ended up with an arrest, fame, lost of fame, and then suicide; the second one by Brazilian priest Adelir Antonio de Carli ended up with him missing and presumed dead), Kent Couch decided to try it himself. Couch (I know, [...]

Found: Video of Conan O’Brien’s Harvard Class of 2000 Commencement Speech - 07/06/2008 08:47 AM

We’ve posted about Harry Potter’s author J.K. Rowling’s commencement speech to Harvard grads before on Neatorama - this time it’s Conan O’Brien’s turn. Here’s a clip and transcript to Conan’s commencement address for Harvard’s Class of 2000: I’ve dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your [...]

Chronotopic Anamorphosis - 07/06/2008 08:45 AM

Belo Horizonte of the Marginalia Project explains what “Chronotopic Anamorphosis” is all about: The image is digitally manipulated by fragmenting it into horizontal lines and then combining lines from different frames in the display. The result is a distorsion of the figures caused by their motion in time, or, as Brazilian researcher Arlindo Machado calls it: [...]

Say Hello To HAL - 07/06/2008 02:46 AM

Allow me to introduce you to HAL - the “Hybrid Assistive Limb” from Cyberdyne. HAL, is a robotic suit or rather exoskeleton that can be worn by humans to potentially give them superhuman strength by multiplying the users strength by a factor of 2 to 10. Created by Prof. Yoshiyuki Sankai of Tsukuba [...]

Language That Has No Words for Numbers - 07/05/2008 08:22 PM

Can you imagine a language without any word for "one" or any other numbers? Aren’t numbers so important that life would be nearly impossible if you don’t have words to express them? Apparently not, as scientists found one such number-less language: The team, led by MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences Edward Gibson, found that [...]

U.S. Economy Sucks, So Illegal Immigrants Are Goin’ Home! - 07/05/2008 08:21 PM

Here’s an unexpected side effect of the economic downturn in the U.S.: more and more illegal immigrants are going back to Mexico! According to informal surveys by the Mexican consulate in Dallas, most of those wanting to return to Mexico cite the sudden scarcity of jobs, fear of deportation and uncertainty about obtaining legal resident [...]

Nanotube Radio - 07/05/2008 08:20 PM

Image: Zettl Research Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California at Berkeley Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and UC Berkeley (my alma mater, yay!) have just created the world’s smallest radio: from a single carbon nanotube! The single nanotube serves, at once, as all major components of a radio: antenna, tuner, amplifier, and demodulator. [...]

Anger Management Gas Station - 07/05/2008 08:19 PM

Photo: Bobak Bakhtiari When it comes to gas prices, Tanforan Shell gas station (in San Bruno, California - I used to live near there!) owner Bobak Bakhtiari feels your pain. So he installed a dunk tank to let his customers vent their frustration on a man dressed as in Shell uniform! Here’s an interview with Bobak (who [...]

Got a Job in San Francisco? No Housing Assistance For You! - 07/05/2008 08:18 PM

A couple of days ago, I posted about Replate, a movement in San Francisco to help feed the homeless that stirred an interesting discussion on Neatorama. San Francisco, bless its heart, spends hundreds of millions of dollars trying to help and house the extremely poor - but it ignores a large segment of its population who [...]

Super Chuck Norris Bros. - 07/05/2008 06:32 PM

WeGame link Chuck Norris is the baddest video game character ever! And he has the weapons to prove it. I’m surprised this wasn’t created years ago. (via Unique Daily)

Wear Your Helmet! - 07/05/2008 06:04 PM

11-year-old Savannah Haworth was riding her bike home when a car ran over her arm, shoulder and head! She was taken to a hospital, but suffered only minor scrapes and bruises. The helmet she was wearing bore the brunt of the impact and shattered into pieces. Savannah’s parents Harvey and Gillian believe if their daughter had not [...]

I Met the Walrus - 07/05/2008 06:02 PM

(YouTube link) In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Directed by Josh Raskin with illustrations by James Braithwaite and Alex Kurina. [...]

Pregnant Man Gave Birth to a Baby Girl - 07/05/2008 01:58 AM

Thomas Beatie, the transgendered "Pregnant Man" has just given birth, ABC reported: The birth, at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend, Oregon, was natural, according to a source, who added that reports that Beatie had had a Caesarean section are false. "She’s really cute, really pretty,” the source told ABC News Thursday afternoon. Link Previously on Neatorama: The Pregnant [...]

Stars and Stripes, as Seen by the Hubble Space Telescope - 07/05/2008 12:48 AM

This one fits today’s Independence Day celebration to a tee: You are looking at the remnant of a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years ago. The red stripe, called the SN 1006 Supernova Remnant, is actually a ribbon of gas that floats in our galaxy as captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope: Link [...]

eBay Auction for Vote Ended Up with 0 Bid and 1 Felony Charge - 07/05/2008 12:47 AM

Max P. Sander’s eBay auction ended with 0 bids … and 1 felony charge! The 19-year-old University of Minnesota student is charged with selling his vote in the Presidential Election (it was a joke, he said): "The rules are simple, the highest bidder will tell me who to cast my vote for in the election," he [...]

Was It Self Defense or Murder? - 07/04/2008 10:58 PM

Most people agree that a homeowner has got an intrinsic right to protect himself in his home if attacked - but the case of Joe Horn sparked a furious debate whether that right extended to shooting unarmed burglars in the back: Moments later, Horn saw two burglars leave his neighbor’s house, one of them carrying a [...]

Emergency Caller Reported Moon as UFO - 07/04/2008 09:09 PM

A caller called the 999 emergency line in South Wales to report a mysterious bright stationary object in the sky. And when the police checked it out, they found that it was … the moon! Control Room: "South Wales Police, what’s your emergency?" Caller: "It’s not really. I just need to inform you that across the mountain [...]

Michael Bay’s Rejected Batman Movie Script - 07/04/2008 09:08 PM

Tearin’ its way through the InterWeb right now is an unsolicited script by Michael Bay (Director of Transformers, Bad Boys, and so on) for Batman’s The Dark Knight that was rejected by Warner Bros. Pure. Comedy. Gold. Link - Thanks Jaime!

“American” in Movie Titles - 07/04/2008 09:08 PM

The Criticker blog noticed something about movie titles: a lot of them have the word "American" in them. In fact, "American" is by far the most popular nationality in movie titles. Check out the entire list of movies with the word "American" in their titles: Link - Thanks Juergen! (Is that surprising? Aren’t most movies made [...]

Staff Photos by Michael Hughes - 07/04/2008 09:07 PM

Photo: michael hughes [Flickr] Photographer Michael Hughes, who did the neat trompe l’oeil photography of souvenirs in front of landmarks (featured before on Neatorama here) is at it again: this time, he created what has got to be the world’s largest "meet the staff" photo page! The Teams project is progressing well with the unveiling of an [...]

Dad Put Kids in a Cage Because He Couldn’t Find a Baby Sitter - 07/04/2008 09:06 PM

Ricardo Gonzalez had to bring his two small children to work every day because he can’t find a baby sitter. That in itself isn’t bad, but Gonzalez went one step further: he locked his kids in a cage while he works! Whenever Ricardo Gonzalez went to a job site in his pickup truck, he never let [...]

Stars and Stripes Forever - 07/04/2008 06:46 PM

(YouTube link) Sam the Eagle and his Muppet friends salute America on its 232nd birthday. Happy Independence Day! -via Fuzzytopia

Husky Singing - 07/04/2008 06:43 PM

(YouTube link) This dog is singing along to Gwen Stephani’s Sweet Escape. He’s not that good, but he puts his heart into it! -via Arbroath

Volkswagen’s One-Liter Car - 07/04/2008 06:41 PM

Volkswagen’s new microcar will seat two people and get a stunning 235 miles per gallon! Volkswagen’s had its super-thrifty One-Liter Car concept vehicle — so named because that’s how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers — stashed away for six years. The body’s made of carbon fiber to minimize weight (the entire car [...]

Jedi Gym - 07/04/2008 02:56 PM

(YouTube link) A Star Wars nerd opens a gym for like-minded individuals. Just when you start to think this is too long, unexpected events make it something very different. -via Metafilter

Best Neatorama Posts of June 2008 - 07/04/2008 08:54 AM

Last month, we posted 450 posts and got 7077 (legit, non-spam) comments on Neatorama. That’s a lot - and unless you read the blog every day, it’s easy to miss some great posts. So please indulge me while I look back at June and pick what I think are some of the most interesting posts [...]

Thomas Paine: Hero, Patriot … and a Paine in the Butt! - 07/04/2008 08:52 AM

The following is reprinted from Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again Thomas Paine was a writer, agitator, Anglo-American revolutionary, and professional troublemaker. They certainly don't [...]

5 Crazy Web Scams That Fooled A Lot Of People - 07/04/2008 08:07 AM

Techcult blog has an interesting post about the 5 scams that found fertile ground on the Internet. For instance, the story of how Tiger Telematics, the maker of Gizmondo handheld gaming device (left), lost $200 million in just 6 months: The business history of Tiger Telematics (the makers of Gizmondo) makes Grand Theft Auto look like [...]