20 Aug 2008 14:03:55 | GeekAlerts | Car & 038, Vehicle | Comments
Recently, we have seen both a Go-Kart and Wooden Boat version of the famous Italian sports car, but what will the Ferrari look like in the future? Maybe something like this.
Emily was created by Image Metrics in California, the same company that created the graphics for the game Grand Theft Auto.
“Ninety per cent of the work is convincing people that the eyes are real,” Mike Starkenburg, chief operating officer of Image Metrics, said.
“The subtlety of the timing of eye movements is a big one. People also have a natural asymmetry - for instance, in the muscles in the side of their face. Those types of imperfections aren’t that significant but they are what makes people look real.”
Dominic Arpin reported this past Monday that a white shark was seen in the Saint Lawrence River. The video is actually part of an online campaign for a new TV show called “Légendes Urbaines” on french television station Canal D, their commercial can be seen here.
Forget WWE and Mexico’s lucha libre … the real wrestling action is in Bolivia. Here’s a neat article by Alma Guillermoprieto for the National Geographic Magazine about the cholitas luchadoras or fighting Bolivian beauties:
Like many of the women of Aymara descent in the audience, Yolanda and Claudina are dressed to the nines in the traditional fashion of the Andean highlands: shiny skirts over layers of petticoats, embroidered shawls pinned with filigreed jewelry, bowler hats. Their costumes glisten in the spotlights while they make a regal progress around the bleachers, greeting their public with the genteel smiles of princesses, twirling and waving gracefully until the music stops.
That’s the sign for the two women to swing themselves deftly onto the wrestling ring that has been the focus of this afternoon’s activity. Swiftly they remove their hats, unpin their shawls, and … whap, whap, whap! Claudina belts Yolanda one, Yolanda slaps Claudina, Claudina tries to escape, but Yolanda grabs Claudina by her pigtails and spins her around, and WHAM! Claudina whirls through the air, petticoats and braids flying, and lands flat on her back on the mat, gasping like a fish. The audience goes nuts.
20 Aug 2008 00:28:01 | Alex | Art & Craft,Home & 038, Garden,Pictures,Science & Tech | Comments
Here’s a window for Windows lover, Fenêtres 3.1 by John Nouanesing, a real window made to look like Microsoft’s classic 3.1 OS version (complete with the 'code'shades - or is it just the BSOD?). It’s only a concept for now, probably because efforts to convert it to reality were constantly met with unexplainable crashes: Link
20 Aug 2008 00:27:27 | Alex | Gadget,Movies & SciFi | Comments
Ben Wake lost a leg in a motorcycle accident, so during his rehabilitation, his friends got together to build him … a Dalek wheelchair for him get around!
20 Aug 2008 00:20:04 | Miss Cellania | Architecture | Comments
The Burj Dubai tower, the tallest skyscraper in the world, is about to be completed. To celebrate it, David Hobcote has taken a series of amazing high resolution pictures from the air which give an exact impression of the breathtaking, massive scale of this building.
Construction is expected to be completed in August, 2009. See more pictures at Gizmodo. Link-Thanks, kid_icarus!
20 Aug 2008 00:14:05 | Miss Cellania | Animal | Comments
You’ve seen dolphins shimmy along the top of the water balanced on their tails at Sea World or on TV, but the behavior has spread to the ocean!
A wild dolphin is apparently teaching other members of her group to walk on their tails, a behaviour usually seen only after training in captivity.
The tail-walking group lives along the south Australian coast near Adelaide.
One of them spent a short time after illness in a dolphinarium 20 years ago and may have picked up the trick there.
Scientists studying the group say tail-walk tuition has not been seen before, and suggest the habit may emerge as a form of “culture” among this group.
19 Aug 2008 23:37:58 | Miss Cellania | Travel & 038, Places | Comments
Ariane is at it again! Previously, she sent us a picture pointing us toward a well-named village in England. This time it’s a sign for a road she came across in her travels. Link-Thanks, Ariane!
Here are 7 stories of people who made their fortunes and those who lost it all ...
From Rags to Riches ...
JIM CARREY
From Rags ... He had to drop out of high school and take a job as a janitor in a factory. In fact, his entire family worked in that factory, living in a small cottage on the grounds. At his lowest low, Carrey wrote a $10 million check to himself ... to be redeemed when he made the big time.
... to Riches: After working the comedy circuit for years, Carrey landed a role on In Living Color, which led to a movie deal. In 1996 he became the highest paid actor ever when he received $20 million to star in Cable Guy. When his father died, Carrey placed the check he had written to himself in his dad's burial suit.
J.K. ROWLING
From Rags ... As a single mother living on public assistance, Rowling started writing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in a café while her baby daughter napped. Why the café? Because it was warmer than the tiny flat she lived in. When Bloomsbury Books bought her manuscript in 1996, she was thrilled. The £1,500 (about $2,400) she was advanced was more money than she'd ever received at one time in her life.
... to Riches: Four years and three more books later, Rowling was worth more than $400 million ... and she's not done yet. [ed note: this article was written in 2003, now Rowling is worth more than $1.1 billion]
OPRAH WINFREY
From Rags ... Born in Mississippi to unwed teenage parents, Winfrey grew up in poverty. While living in Milwaukee, she was molested by relatives. Not knowing what else to do, her mother sent her to live in a detention home.
... to Riches: Fortunately the detention home was full and Winfrey went to live with her father. He nurtured her abilities and helped her get to college. Now, as the queen of the talk show, Winfrey is worth an estimated $1 billion. [ed note: by 2007, Winfrey is worth $2.5 billion]
From Riches to Rags ...
WILLIE NELSON
From Riches ... By 1988 Willie Nelson had been a country music star for nearly 20 years and had two multiplatinum albums under his belt.
... to Rags: Due to years of 'creative' accounting, in 1990 Nelson owed the IRS $16.7 million. To pay it, he had to auction off just about everything he owned.
[ed note: Nelson's debts were settled in 1993, and he continued to write music and perform.]
M.C. HAMMER
From Riches ... 'U Can't Touch This,' released in 1990, became a pop phenomenon, making Hammer an overnight superstar. A world tour and endorsement deals with Pepsi and KFC followed.
... to Rags: Hammer went on a $30 million spending spree that included mansions and $500,000-a-month payroll. After two mediocre follow-up albums and some poor investments, Hammer declared bankruptcy in 1996, more than $13 million in debt.
From Riches ... In his heyday in the 1890s, Tesla was a rich and famous inventor and held more than 700 patents. He is best known for developing alternating current (AC) electricity.
... to Rags: He was also naive. Thomas edison, who saw Tesla as competition, did all he could to undermine Tesla's work. It worked. A series of patent lawsuits left Tesla with no money or credit, despite his many inventions. He died broke in 1943.
MIKE TYSON
From Riches ... The youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history had earned $300 million.
... to Rags: By 2003 it was all gone. Tyson blames his former promoter, Don King, for mismanaging his earnings. King claims that Tyson blew the money himself. The two will duke it out in court.
Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.
19 Aug 2008 19:42:52 | StacyBee | Neatorama Only | Comments
Long before Bonsai Kittens and the tourist guy, hoaxsters have been wreaking havoc on the gullible to amuse themselves and maybe gain a little notoriety. Here are a few hoaxes that pre-date the Internet, in some cases by centuries. There are plenty more, so perhaps a follow-up is in order – if you have any suggestions, leave them in the comments.
The Turk
This might not seem so impressive in the day and age of computers, but at the time, a mechanical man who could beat anyone at chess was quite the novelty. Wolfgang von Kempelen constructed just that. It baffled people from 1770 until 1854. It was a life-sized man from the waist up, dressed in robes and a turban (to emphasize the mystic quality, I suppose). It sat with a cabinet which opened to reveal all kinds of cogs and gears and complicated-looking machinery, which were designed to hide a person sitting on a sliding seat. The person could maneuver around in the cabinet to conceal himself as the presenter opened various cabinet doors to prove that nothing was inside but machinery. The person inside would then use various levers to make the Turk move, pick up chess pieces and even shake his head disapprovingly at opponents trying to cheat. The Turk defeated the likes of Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon Bonaparte. Edgar Allan Poe wrote an essay on it, guessing how the tricks were done, but was largely incorrect.
The Turk was lost in a fire on July 5, 1854. In 1857, the son of the Turk’s final owner decided that since the Turk was “deceased”, it was time for his secrets to be revealed. He wrote a series of articles for The Chess Monthly and exposed nearly everything.
For Sale, Cheap: The Brooklyn Bridge
George Parker would sell anything that wasn’t nailed down – no, wait, he sold stuff that was nailed down, too. Cemented and bolted down, in fact. He set up an office in New York to handle real estate deals – huge deals. Among his offerings were the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, Grant’s Tomb, Madison Square Garden and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He would convince buyers that they could own a piece of history and even made some very convincing documents giving them ownership. He is the reason the phrase “If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you,” came about. Despite all of these sales – he supposedly “sold” the Brooklyn Bridge twice a week – he was only convicted of fraud three times.
The Cottingley Fairies
Tinkerbell would be pleased that these young girls believed in fairies, but perhaps would have disapproved of their methods of “proving” it. Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths were cousins. Elsie, 16, was a wonderful artist who worked in a photo lab and a greeting card factory. She borrowed her dad’s camera to take some pictures, and when they were developed, pictures of fairies happened to be in some of them. He declared them fake, but Elsie’s mother disagreed.
The pictures soon became public and were up for interpretation. One of the people fooled by the prints was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series. But not everyone was easily convinced. In order to show that the fairy sightings were real, a clairvoyant was brought to Cottingley. The idea was that if anyone else would be able to see fairies, surely a clairvoyant could. Perhaps eager to prove just how spiritual he was, the clairvoyant said that yes, he absolutely saw the fairies, although he was not able to get any more pictures.
The whole thing remained unsolved until 1981, when the cousins were interviewed for a magazine called The Unexplained. They admitted they had made cut-out fairies and held them up with hatpins, and said they realized the joke had gone too far when Arthur Conan Doyle was duped. They were embarrassed to come forth after that and decided to keep up the ruse. However, Frances said that although the first four pictures were fakes, the fifth one (the one on the left, above) was real and that she and her cousin actually did see fairies.
The Lying Stones
A Professor at the University of Wurzburg in Germany was fooled by his colleagues in the 18th century. They carved limestone into animal shapes and carved the name of God on them in various characters and hid them on a nearby mountain where Professor Beringer liked to hunt for fossils. Beringer became convinced that the carvings were actually created by God himself. Even when people pointed out that the limestone showed chisel marks, he held to his theory and even published a book on the stones. His colleagues eventually came clean, but he refused to believe them and called them agnostic. He was finally convinced when the two men testified in court that they had just wanted to discredit Beringer because he was so conceited. Beringer pretty much ruined himself financially trying to buy up all of the copies of his ridiculous book. The stones became known as Lügensteine, the lying stones.
Princess Caraboo
In 1817, Princess Caraboo popped up in Almondsbury in Gloucestershire, England. She was speaking a strange language and was wearing clothes that weren’t common to the area, so people were quite intrigued by her. No one could understand what she was saying, but when she was offered a room at the local inn, she ate a pineapple for dinner and slept on the floor instead of in the bed. Finally, a man who spoke Portugeuse claimed to understand her and translated for her. She was a Princess from the island of Javasu who was kidnapped by pirates. She escaped by jumping overboard and swimming to shore, which was how she had ended up in Almondsbury. A woman in Bristol read about her in a newspaper and recognized her as a girl who had stayed at her lodging house not too long before. She entertained the woman’s daughters by speaking in her own made up language, just for fun. Another man said that he met “Princess Caraboo” a couple of days before she turned up in Almondsbury, but at that time she spoke English and drank rum and ate steak (as “Princess Caraboo”, she was strictly vegetarian). When confronted with these stories, the Princess admitted that she was Mary Baker and came from Witheridge, Devon.
19 Aug 2008 18:19:56 | Alex | Advertising,Video Clips | Comments
Yes, I know, I know, it’s a viral ad for Zillow, the real estate valuations website (they’re probably feeling the pinch as people have stopped looking at their home values because they’ve been dropping like rocks!).
But it’s a funny viral ad. What’s not to like about seeing people getting bonked in the head with pillows? In slo-mo goodness, no less!
19 Aug 2008 18:18:57 | Alex | Crime & Law | Comments
The current U.S. drinking age of 21 is not working, according to more than 100 college and university presidents. They have signed a statement calling for a public debate to rethink and lower the drinking age to 18:
'Kids are going to drink whether it’s legal or illegal,' said Johns Hopkins President William R. Brody, who supports lowering the drinking age to 18. 'We’d at least be able to have a more open dialogue with students about drinking as opposed to this sham where people don’t want to talk about it because it’s a violation of the law.' [...]
Several students interviewed yesterday at Johns Hopkins said lowering the drinking age could reduce binge drinking. 'I think alcohol is seen, a lot of times, as a forbidden thing, and people want it,' said Jamie Hittman, 20, a junior from Columbia. 'It’s almost like contraband. Once you get it, you have to drink all of it.'
Katie Buckheit, 19 and also a junior, said if people were exposed to drinking at a younger age, they would be more mature about it. 'Maybe I’m being idealistic, but in Europe you can drink once you can see the bar,' she said. 'I think we should maybe take a lesson from what other countries are doing.'
But Laura Kranish, an 18-year-old sophomore from Silver Spring, said students would drink as much they do no matter what the drinking age is.
What do you think? Should the drinking age in the US be lowered to 18? Would that help reduce binge drinking or lead to higher alcohol-related accidents?
19 Aug 2008 16:55:16 | Adam Stanhope | Media,Sports,Travel & 038, Places,Video Clips | Comments
This is a silly but endearing video from NBC of Al Roker and Matt Lauer performing Rhythmic Gymnastics in Beijing while fellow team member Brian Williams looks on.
Of slightly more interest, perhaps, is the “behind the scenes” video where Canadian rhythmic gymnastics superstar Alexandra Orlando teaches them their routine.
Roker and Lauer recorded a similar video of themselves during the 2004 Olympics. Synchronized swimming was their sport that year.
Ben Wake lost a leg in a motorcycle accident, so during his rehabilitation, his friends got together to build him … a Dalek wheelchair for him get around!
You’ve seen dolphins shimmy along the top of the water balanced on their tails at Sea World or on TV, but the behavior has spread to the ocean! 
The current U.S. drinking age of 21 is not working, according to more than 100 college and university presidents. They have signed a statement calling for a public debate to rethink and lower the drinking age to 18:
