My final posts at Neatorama

Last year I reluctantly ended my three-year adventure as a guest author at Neatorama.  Increasing time commitments necessitated by family activities mandated that I make a cut somewhere, and that's where the ax fell.  Today while cleaning out old bookmark folders I realized that I hadn't posted links to my final posts there, so here they are.  As usual, the material is TYWKIWDBI-type stuff, just posted at a different venue.

Quantum levitation is demonstrated in a brief video showing a puck of superconducting material will hover in a stable position above a magnet.

A cleaner in a German art museum "destroyed a valuable piece of art" by cleaning it.  Or else he created a new piece of art.  Your call.

A video explains Canada's new plastic (they call it "polymer") currency.

A company called Child's Own Studio will transform children's drawings into toys (example embedded at right).

Five postage stamps issued by Great Britain in 1993 commemorated Sherlock Holmes.  Hidden within the design of each stamp is a single letter; the five letters (D, E, L, O, and Y) can be anagrammed to form a relevant word other than "yodel." You are invited to get out your magnifying glass (or supersize the linked images) to find the letters.

A flash mob of about 100 performers danced to Swing classics at the Denver International Airport.

The world's oldest Santa Clause school now teaches Santas how to network using social media and suggests that they advise children not to expect too many presents.

Colliding colored liquid droplets create curious and beautiful structures that are captured by high-speed photography at 5000 frames per second.

The Grim Reaper walks at about two miles (three kilometers) per hour (methodology and analysis of the results are published in the British Medical Journal).

St. John's Cathedral in the city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (in the Netherlands) dates to the sixteenth century and has undergone multiple restorations. During the most recent one, sculptor Ton Mooy from Amersfoort create an angel holding a cell phone.

When Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Jubilee, she received a lamprey pie (the lampreys were imported from the United States).

Attachments are available to allow owners of a Toyota Prius to camp in their vehicle.

I'm not sure why someone would want to see the ten television advertisements that viewers in the U.K. most complained about.

"Weed dating" is the rural equivalent of "speed dating" - an activity developed to allow single people with at least a modicum of interest in gardening to meet others interested in outdoor activities.

My posts at Neatorama

As usual, the content is similiar to what I would otherwise post here; there just aren't as many of them, because my productivity there has fallen off even more than it has here.  But it's good stuff.

The advertisement that won a national award in the “low budget” category of the Association of Independent Commercial Producers features a woman eating a stick of butter.  Filming required 25 takes (and 42 sticks of butter).

Roman ships were designed with a "livewell" that allowed them to transport live fish.

Roger Ebert pans a new seating technology for movie theaters - seats with three levels of pitching, rolling, and heaving.

If you drop a neodynium magnet through a copper pipe, it falls slowly, even though magnets are not attracted to copper.

A pediatric neurosurgeon held her wedding in her hospital so her patients could attend the ceremony.

A "water sommelier" can advise you regarding what type of rainwater would be best to accompany your dinner.

A discomycetes fungus has been named "Hotlips" because of its appearance.

Very unusual metal dodecahedrons have been unearthed in excavation of ancient Roman sites.  No one knows whether they were used as a gambling or game die, a candleholder, a staff decoration, a survey instrument, a toy, a calibration device, or a religious object.  Take a look; your guess is as good as anyones.

Until the practice was banned, several children in the U.S. were mailed to their destination by putting stamps on their clothes.

A photo of a steam-powered tricycle.

Der Spiegel has assembled a photo gallery of Walk/Don't Walk traffic signal icons from around the world, some of which are quite unusual.

Lacking any current photos of butterflies or wildflowers, the pix accompanying this post are of Nimbus, a rescued feral who is the youngest cat in our household.  He wanted his 15 minutes of fame.

Fourteen posts at Neatorama

I've had to delete the adjective "recent" because my productivity has slowed down so much that all of these are several months old.  But they are still interesting...

There are a variety of ways to define what constitutes "Europe."  Eight different ways of doing so are organized into one Euler diagram.

If you travel with a zippered suitcase, you need to view this video.  Everyone knows they can be easily cut open, but this video shows they can be unzippered and rezippered closed, with the lock still in place.

A two-minute video shows the streets of Belfast in 1901.

Reindeer racing is a winter pastime in Finland.  The humans don't sit atop the animal, but rather get pulled along on skis.

Yet another video.  In this one two babies talk to one another.  Cute, but also interesting re the development of human language.  (not a commercial for E-Trade, btw).

Despite rumors to the contrary, Samsung's laptops do NOT harbor keyloggers.

What can a library do with its old, no-longer-necessary, card catalogue.  Here is one answer.

I can't explain "spiderboarding" in one sentence.  Details at the link.

A fly-catcher and a frog purse.  That is all.

There is a good reason why golf balls are sometimes made using lobster shells.

What scientists do to Cadbury Creme Eggs.

Plushies shaped like statistical distributions. 

Grossmünster Cathedral has "stained glass" windows that are actually thin slices of agates.

Bo-taoshi is a Japanese capture-the-flag game.

Photo - I photographed this Eyed Brown (Satyrodes eurydice eurydice) in its classic habitat - the margins of a wet meadow - on the Fourth of July during a field trip to Swamp Lovers' Preserve near Cross Plains, Wisconsin.

Recent posts at Neatorama

There's another "OED" - the "Omnificent English Dictionary (in Limerick Form)," in which word definitions are presented in the form of a limerick.  This is a crowd-sourced (very)-long-term project, but the early entries are quite entertaining.  Look up a word.

A statistician in Canada came up with a way to predict whether a scratch lottery card was likely to be a winner.  He calculated that he could earn $600/day using his method - but he earned more in his regular day job, so didn't pursue it.  But you might be able to use his methodology.

Valentine's Day is already past, but who cares!  You can still send your loved one a notice that a cockroach has been named after him/her.

A magician in China has an act which involves "synchronized swimming" by goldfish.  Some people think magnets are involved; other think the fish aren't real.  Video at the link.

The state of Maine has proposed naming the Whoopie Pie the state dessert.  Controversy ensues over whether a junk food should be so promoted.  Others say "we don't care, we like them."

Russian scientists are now promoting milking sturgeon for caviar rather than sacrificing the fish, which might increase the harvest (and lower the price) of caviar.  Recipes at the link.

The first dinosaur ever discovered was named "Scrotum humanum."  The picture at the link shows why.

Bach's Toccata and Fugue, played on a glass harp.  Beautifully ethereal music - highly recommended.

During the Great Depression, clamshells were painted in California and used as scrip in place of conventional money.  Photo at the link of a $1 clam.

A video from Austria shows a whirlwind lifting plastic sheeting from a farm field, and twirling it in a vortex.

The photo is what I dearly hope will be the last winter image of the year - our front yard after last week's dump of snow.  The first robins arrived yesterday, and crocus sprouts are poking through the grass in the front yard.  It won't be long now...

Recent posts at Neatorama

Last year I wrote a post about the Antikythera mechanism and its possible relationship to the Olympics.  Now a working model can be made from Lego parts.  "Since gears with 19, 47, 127, and 223 teeth were not publicly available, a complex differential shaft had to be fashioned."

This is totally relevant to the superstorm that is engulfing the nation's midsection this week: snow spectacles.  Three examples from the British Museum, made by Eskimos, Siberians, and people from Salekhard.  Apart from their functionality, they are just impressive to look at.

"A Danish urban myth alleges that it is possible to get drunk by submerging one’s feet in alcohol.  Three physicians at Hillerød Hospital in Denmark tested this hypothesis on themselves in their office."

More and more physicians are bring dogs into their offices to serve as "canine assistants" for certain groups of patients.

"Hidden mother" photographs were nineteenth-century tintypes in which mothers covered themselves with cloth in order to hold an infant for a portrait.

A pantomime dame was told by the British Red Cross that she could not wear a red cross on a nurse's uniform.

For fifty years, live babies were taken from orphanages and used as "practice babies" to train "practice mothers."

Horoscope signs have changed because the sky has changed.  I've gone from Cancer to Gemini.  Check your sign change here.

Some fox hunting is now conducted in England using human prey rather than foxes.  Both humans and foxes are happy with the new arrangement.

The coin-flip query "heads-or-tails?" changes in different languages (depending on what is depicted on the obverse and reverse of the coins).  You can add information about your language/country at the Neatorama link or in the comments here.

The top photo shows a nighttime scene from the front door of our house, with a street light and a neighbor's garage light providing the illumination.  Below that is a closeup of our mailbox the morning after a "freezing fog," which produces rather amazing ice crystals everywhere.  I chose these photos today because of a programming note re the blog.  This storm is going to affect our area:

We are expecting well over a foot of snow; we will probably be spared the ice, but I will expect to be clearing the sidewalk and driveway several different times in the next 2-3 days.  Blogging will have to be put on hold for a while.

Recent posts at Neatorama

Fewer than I would like, but several will, I am sure, be of interest to readers here...

In the 1920s, "baby cages" were inserted in the windows of tenements to allow children to have access to fresh air and sunlight.

The item in the photograph is an olive branch crafted out of gold.  It is presently on the moon.

The "Serpent" is an ancient wind instrument, highly convoluted to allow its great length to be accessible to a human with normal-length arms.

If you use topical hormone creams (estrogen, testosterone), be aware that children and pets in your family can absorb physiologic amounts through incidental contact with your skin.

A brief video shows children in the U.K. racing Shetland ponies.

A terrible gaffe by a newscaster, created when he didn't pause long enough between sentences... "Dana is off tonight. He was murdered and set on fire while celebrating his birthday..."

A copper Lincoln penny ("wheat penny") just sold for $1,700,000, because it's a 1943-D penny.  Explained at the link.

A figure compiled by Accu-Weather plots 310 million lightning strikes in the United States.  Try to guess which states had the most activity before you look at the map.  (Follow the links to see worldwide data).

Professors and students at Budapest’s ELTE-MTA Theoretical Linguistics Programme sing a cover of "We Are The World."  The post garnered a number of snarky and disparaging comments, but I think it's a rather well-done performance.

The photos, top-to-bottom:
1)  Another Funereal Duskywing.  I reported spotting one in July, then incredibly encountered another in late October, again in my yard.  Very rare; only a handful of sightings in Wisconsin - ever. 
2)  Below that, a pair of Clouded Sulphurs in copulo.  Unusual because these were seen the second week in November (unusual at our latitude).
3)  And finally, a photo of what happens when you put a pumpkin in a tree for a Halloween decoration and then leave it there.  I wasn't quite quick enough to photograph the perpetrator - a gray squirred had burrowed inside and was eagerly consuming the pumpkin seeds while sitting inside the pumpkin.  He disappeared before I got back with my camera.

Recent posts at Neatorama

I continue to be only minimally productive while wearing my other hat, but some of these are quite good and worth your visit...

Bibliophiles will enjoy discovering that lighthouse-keepers and their families used to be provided with "travelling libraries" - prepackaged crates that would be replaced on a recurring basis.  The link includes additional photos and a sample list of books.

"Oops" is a compilation of segments filmed by (very) amateur videographers who dropped their camera while recording.  This won the 2010 Vimeo award for “Best Experimental Film.”

A 300-year-old pocket watch was recovered from a shipwreck, totally encrusted and corroded.  But the innards were remarkably preserved and nicely shown by CT scan (video flythrough at the link).

If you have ever played/enjoyed Sim City, you should see the video of "Magnasanti" - the largest city ever created and apparently the largest that can be created.  If you have no interest in SimCity, just give this one a pass.

Champagne has been studied scientifically, and a paper has been written documenting how best to pour champagne in order to preserve the bubbles in the liquid to optimize the pleasure of drinking it.

A never-published manuscript by Dr. Seuss (“All Sorts of Sports") was recently discovered.  It was very sketchily written and crudely illustrated, and it sold at auction this past week for $40,000.

The three photos at the top are, as usual, unrelated to the posts.   At the top is a Dainty Sulphur, and below it is a Little Yellow, two members of the Sulphur family that migrate into Wisconsin in the summer season to enjoy our weather; these were photographed during a field trip with the Southern Wisconsin Butterfly Association at the Avoca Prairie and Savannah, one of the State Natural Areas protected by the Wisconsin DNR.  State Natural Areas are wonderful places to hike and photograph, but they are truly "natural" without trails and facilities, so it takes a little extra effort to reap the rewards.

The bottom photo is a Monarch that was rescued from the streets of I think it was Ontario by one of the readers of this blog; the young lady who forwarded the photo to me said that "Jerry" (I think) was aerodynamically impaired, so she had been feeding it for several weeks.  If anyone in Eastern Canada is preparing to drive down to the mountains of Mexico for the winter and would like to offer assisted migration to a Monarch, please leave a message below.

Recent posts at Neatorama

Alexander the Great and his army apparently protected their chest from missile attack with a linothorax - laminated layers of linen.

If you ship or receive items by media mail, you need to be aware that the USPS is routinely opening and inspecting such packages for compliance with regulations.  If an eBay seller says he will ship a non-media item to you via media mail, you may be responsible for cost of noncompliance.

Gapped teeth have become so fashionable that some people are having orthodontists create a gap between their front teeth.

The "Sunrise Fanfare" of Also Sprach Zarathustra, played by the Portsmouth Sinfonia group that I blogged here earlier this week.

For the bicycle enthusiast, a peek at (and link to) a book about The Modern Bicycle - published in 1876.

The replica of Michelangelo's David displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum has a removable figleaf, created for use during visits by Queen Victoria.

An architect who lost his eyesight discovered that his skills as a blind person were of use to his fellow architects.

The unrelated photo is one I took of the large platform mound at Aztalan State Park.

Recent posts at Neatorama

My productivity has fallen off a bit both at Neatorama and at TYWKIWDBI this summer because of a flurry of conflicting interests.  But here are a few interesting items I've posted there:

Video of a Yo-Yo champion in Category 1A ("The player uses a long sleeping yo-yo to perform string tricks which usually require the manipulation of the string.”)  It's awesome, but these guys are professionals who probably do nothing else all day.

Another, video, a "mockumentary" on the life cycle of the plastic bag.  Narrated by Jeremy Irons and created to generate support for a bill before the California legislature which will ban single-use plastic bags, limit distribution of paper bags, and encourage the use of reusable bags.  Four minutes long, very professionally done.

A rosary "terminal" from the sixteenth century, carved out of ivory, and depicting the head of a deceased man, with half the skull eaten away from decay.

Information about a book being published by the Bodleian Library - a dictionary of 17th century slang.  So you can tell the difference between Cackling-farts and Farting-crackers.

A carpet made out of pearls.  Literally.  "Across the centre there are three large round ‘rosettes’ each made of table cut diamonds set in silvered gold. Further smaller diamond rosettes in the border, all of which are embellished with sapphires, rubies and emeralds set in gold."

A nineteenth-century artificial hand and arm.  "The elbow joint can be moved by releasing a spring, whereas the top joint of the wrist allows a degree of rotation and an up-and-down motion."  Visually impressive.

Guilloche patterns have a certain intrinsic visual beauty, quite apart from their mathematical beauty.   If you have a little bit of latent math nerdiness, be sure to click on to the Proof Math is Beautiful site.

Middle-school and high-school students are wearing wristbands declaring "I Love Boobies," supposedly to show support for breast cancer.  The campaign is causing some controversy.

And finally, an old video that shows what happens on a cruise ship when it hits turbulent seas.  Not for the faint of heart.

The photos are, as usual, unrelated.  On the top is a nice macro view of the underside of the wings of a Painted Lady, to show how her pattern is slightly different from the American Lady (the American Lady has "two big eyes" and the Painted Lady has four of them.)  Below that is a nice image of a Viceroy; that black stripe crossing the hind wing distinguishes her from a Monarch (along with a generally smaller size, not evident from the photo).  Both pix enlarge with a click.

Recent posts at Neatorama

(The image is unrelated; it is an Aphrodite Fritillary that recently visited the purple coneflowers in our garden)

Bambi pummels a dog.  Video of a doe and fawn in a suburban neighhborhood being investigated by a cat and dog.  The latter gets the stuffing beaten out of him by the doe.  Read the spoiler at the link before deciding whether you want to watch.

If you use free WiFi at airports without taking proper precautions, your laptop can be hacked.

"Crop mobbing" is a new development in social networking that appeals to the "agricurious."

A newborn with 12 fingers and 12 toes elicits wonderful reactions from parents and medical personnel.  Video at the link.

A restaurant is proposed for Madison, Wisconsin, that will only be accessible to those on bicycles.

A website helps you convert your numerical phone number into corresponding letters, and hopefully words.

Dozens of Members of Parliament in Pakistan have fake degrees.  Their defense:  "A degree is a degree, whether it is fake or genuine."

A big yellow school bus capable of going 350 mph.  It has a jet engine.

"Stand-up paddling" is a new form of recreation.

Melting glaciers and icefields continue to yield amazing prehistoric artifacts.

In 1958 a man won a free trip to Mars in a Burma Shave promotion.

Astronauts in the Apollo Space Program were uninsurable re life insurance.  Read about how they cleverly provided financial support for their families in case they were to die.

Extraterrestrial carbon buckyballs have been detected.


Motorcycles equipped with firefighting equipment can get to some fires faster than conventional fire trucks can.  Clever idea.

Winston Churchill's dentures were designed to PRESERVE his lisp - not correct it.

Padded panties.  Do you need this fashion accessory?

Read to find out whether you are a truly elite shopper or not.  (Probably not)

Google Earth can now show you real-time weather so you don't have to look out the window.

Paintings by a congenitally blind man.  You can quibble about the quality, but you can't argue with his determination.

A link to a wonderful children's book from 1917, with lots of clever poems.

Students at Kansas State prepared a video with their thoughts about education (unfortunately this was in 2007, which I didn't notice, and it's probably a bit out of date now).

Scientific American has a set of 26 optical illusions, some of which are quite remarkable.  Nitpickers will make snarky comments about the validity of the illusions, totally missing the point of their relevance to understanding human vision.

Nematode behavior can be adjusted by "remote control" by embedding magnetic nanoparticles in them and opening and closing their cellular ion channels with magnets.  Has potential implications for future medical innovations.

California chemists have suggested that "extra virgin" olive oil is often bogus.  Importers disagree.

Recent Neatorama posts

Mayflies swarming near LaCrosse are visible on National Weather Service radar.

A video purports to show a golf ball deforming while hitting a steel plate at 150 mph. Some viewers doubt the validity of the video; others suggest that it is a balata-type golf ball.

The tents made by caterpillars are solar collectors that allow the larvae to function on cold days.

If you can only one video about the Gulf oil spill, watch Clarke and Dawe explain what happened.  You'll feel guilty for laughing...

If you find a butterfly with a broken wing, it is actually possible to fix the butterfly's wing with things you have around the house.  The video shows step-by-step what to do.

A radio in Scotland is said to be receiving broadcasts from the WWII era - lots of speeches by Winston Churchill and music by Glenn Miller.  It's hard to explain.  Especially since the radio is not plugged in.

A quite interesting video shows how to make a glider out of paper and then "airsurf" it around a room.  Perfect for kids, and inquisitive adults.

I spent six months in London some years ago, and the one program I enjoyed most was "Mastermind."  (second was Blackadder, but that's another story...).  Here's a video clip of a contestant on Mastermind answering a barrage of questions about H. P. Lovecraft.

Before you eat sheep entrails, you should dress them up to look like a snake.  On a more serious note, the link also leads to an outstanding discussion of what has been going on in Kyrgyzstan.

The most unusual piano you will see all week; it was designed to be played by people flat on their backs in bed.

The photo is of a mayfly; not one of the ones from LaCrosse in the story above, but a local Madison one.  It expands to a nice wallpaper size with a click.

Recent posts at Neatorama

"Rush Hour in Utrecht" is a two-minute video showing rush hour in a city where people commute by bicycle.   The intersection shown has 18,000 bicycles crossing it each day.

The next video shows an unusual effect - a ball rolls down a ramp more slowly than you would expect.  The reason is explained in the video, and this is something you can make at home.

An unusual book from the 18th century opens up to become a seat fitting over a chamber pot.

Given the choice, bees prefer flowers whose nectar contains caffeine or nicotine.  The former occurs naturally in some plants.

The Lewis Chessmen are "the most precious archaeological treasures ever discovered in Scotland. It is believed they were made in Trondheim, Norway, in the late 12th century and dug from the sands of Lewis’s Atlantic coast in 1831."

The oak trees of Britain are threatened by a blight.  Simon Schama writes an interesting essay on the role of the oak in the history of England (linked at the link).

America's National Monuments get many fewer visitors and less vehicular traffic than the more-well-known National Parks.  Here's a list of the 20 least-visited National Monuments.

Of the dozen or so pieces listed here, I thought this one was rather ordinary, but curiously it got more comments than all the others put together.  It's a two-minute video about the Bechdel Test, which is one (of many) ways to evaluate the roles of men and women in movies.  Some people get very worked up over topics like this.

A young man is walking across the United States (passing through Minnesota this week, which is why I found out about him).  Not a big deal, not sponsored by anyone.  But he is maintaining a blog while walking, and it's quite interesting, with photos of interesting scenery (he sees a lot of mailboxes walking on rural roads for a thousand miles...), and of nice people who have been kind to him in his adventure.

Here's a tumblr blog entirely about Stephen Fry.

If you've ever had a Micro course or worked with bacteria, you will experience a moment of recognition when you see Petri Dish Soap.

Stem cell technology is being applied to dental restoration work, with the creation of "scaffolds" which are inserted into your mouth; stem cells are drawn to the scaffold, and a new tooth grows where you lost the old one.  Work in progress.

Probably every army in recorded history has left some graffiti behind.  This set of photos shows some of the graffiti in Berlin after the allies defeated Hitler.

An essay at The Telegraph has photos of the palettes used by famous artists (Renoir, Seurat, Degas, Delacroix (above), Moreau, Gauguin, and Van Gogh).  Each a little different, reflecting I suppose the idiosyncracies of the users.

The photos are unrelated - butterflies photographed in our back yard this morning.  On top, a Red-spotted Purple resting on an oak leaf; its larva feed on all sorts of trees (cherry, willow, aspen, poplar, birch, juneberry, basswood, hawthorn), so I don't expect to find eggs or caterpillars.  Below that, one of the numerous types of "grass skippers" - Peck's Skipper - sitting on recently-sprouted carrots in the butterfly garden.

Recent posts at Neatorama

A truly incredible all-purpose military tool; it's a shovel, a hammer, a knife - and it opens beer bottles.  Video at the link.

School officials in England confiscated a cheese sandwich from a two-year-old in nursery school, because they didn't feel it was a healthy meal.

A video explains how to give a "high five," noting especially some potentially embarrassing mistakes to avoid.

If you've ever played the flash game "Bejeweled" or an equivalent click-and-collapse matrix game, you will be impressed/appalled at a man who spent three years racking up a score that cannot ever be beaten because it's as high as the game goes (2 to the 31st power minus 1).

A video from the BBC's "Life" series shows the battles of Darwin's Beetle.  Magnificent photography, and a surprise ending that only lacks the Wilhelm scream.

Volkswagen has developed a folding electric bicycle that goes 12.5 mph and travels 12 miles and recharges while sitting in your trunk.  It looks really cool.  Probably will cost big bucks, though...

Additional footage has been found that was part of the original release of Fritz Lang's iconic "Metropolis" movie.  This restored version will be circulating in theaters this year and will then be released on DVD.  Film buffs are salivating.

My father's alma mater, Penn State, has excellent football players, but they have also used acoustic mapping to figure out where the best location is for students to sit in the stadium so their cheering can totally drown out the opposing team's play-calling.  Interesting.

A newspaper editorial complained in 1914 about the unreasonably high salaries being paid to professional baseball players.  Some quick calculations show that today's players are paid 50X as much - even after adjusting for inflation.


Photos:  bleeding hearts and bearded iris from our gardens.

Recent Neatorama posts

So you think you have good eyes and good perceptual skills?  Think you can distinguish a spiral from a set of concentric circles?  No, you can't.

Sperm race around inside the female genital tract.  You can follow their progress if you use a fluorescent tag to mark some of them red and some of them green.  It looks like a totally bizarre Christmas ornament.

It's a truism that life cannot exist without water.  But life may be able to pass through a totally dehydrated state and return when water is reapplied.  A Cambridge University scientist demonstrates the alien-like abilities of the rotifer.

Remember Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men)?  If he played golf, this is the club he would use - it has an explosive charge inside the clubhead...

Some people argue (not illogically) that income tax records should be public information (bottom lines, not details).  It was actually done that way in the 1920s.

Outsourcing - coming to universities and colleges near you.  Teachers can now outsource the grading of student papers.  Don't like it?  Would you prefer that the teacher not assign any written papers because he/she doesn't have time to read it?  It's a complex problem.

You can make music with a vinyl tube and a mouthpiece; you don't need all those metal parts.

The post office has Automated Postal Centers that print up stamps on demand for you, with the date of printing on the stamp.  In certain circumstances that knowledge might prove useful.

The turtle ant is a "living door."  When you see his head, you will understand how/why.

Here's a very strange photograph made with a pinhole camera.  I'll bet a nickel you can't guess what the bright lights behind the house are.

This photo shows the awesome power of an earthquake.

I posted the Ross Sisters performing Solid Potato Salad last year, but found a better quality YouTube video of their act.  In case you have forgotten, they are singing acrobatic contortionist sisters with abs you would die for.

An ancient Roman coffin is shaped like a burrito.  No one knows why. 

A sculpture representing the Virgin Mary is shaped in the most curious way.

Earthworms communicate by touch and travel in herds.  And after reading that, you can watch the famous "cat herding" commercial.

If you've ever pushed a rotary lawn mower, you've had to clean grass out from the area under the deck around the blade.  But yours never looked like this.

Video of a dog leading police to the site of a burning house.   A cat would have just headed to the neighbors looking for a new source of food.

Homemade snowmobiles in Russia.

A huge computerized baggage carousel sorts books at the NYPL.

If/when you use a public photocopier, consider covering up sensitive information (social security number etc, which you presumably can remember without having it on your copy) because the photocopier may store the photo of your document, and it might fall into the wrong hands if the machine's hard drive is not wiped before it is resold.

When cars hit wild boars, both lose.

As always, for the relevant photos you need to go to the Neatorama links.  The ones embedded above show our newly-eclosed luna moth (and his magnificent pheromone-detecting antennae) and some bluebells and grape hyacinth in our garden.

Recent posts at Neatorama

A very deceptive optical illusion.  Looks for all the world like a spiral, but is not one.

A video of fluorescent-tagged sperm racing around a female genital tract (more interesting than you might imagine from the description).

Excerpts from an essay at the New York Times suggesting that if all income tax records were made public information, there would be less tax cheating and more public demand to revamp an unfair code.

Video explaining the absolutely other-worldly biology of rotifers, which can withstand extreme temperatures and near-total desiccation.

Some college teachers are outsourcing the grading of student papers.  The knee-jerk reaction is to be deeply upset, but it's more complicated that you might think.

Video of a "swingless golf club" which has an explosive charge in the club head.

An explanation of how the pre-printed stamps from an automated postal center might in selected circumstances help you mail something successfully after a postmark deadline.

Video of a Professor of Trumpet demonstrating that music can be successfully generated using only a mouthpiece and a segment of vinyl tubing.

The head of a turtle ant allows it to be a living door.

A photo that looks like a scene from Blade Runner, but is even more awesome than that when you discover what it is depicting.

A photo showing the immense power of an earthquake.

Old-time TYWKIDBI visitors will remember the video of "Solid Potato Salad" performed by singing acrobatic contortionist triplet sisters.

An old Roman coffin shaped very much like a burrito.

As with all my smorgasbord-type posts, the photos above are unrelated to Neatorama or to the subject matter in the links.  These are pix of various plants from our gardens.

Recent posts at Neatorama

Boston.com's The Big Picture has a collection of 30 pix of recent world-record items (many of them food related).

A zebra in a Zurich zoo was photographed cleaning the teeth of a hippopotamus. 

Feed, seed, and grain sacks are not merely collectible items, but are now being adapted as stylish decorative additions to the home. 

Ever been to a concert and heard "newbies" applaud at the "wrong" moment (at the end of a symphonic movement or a solo performance).  One music critic says "that's o.k."

The world's hottest chili is being weaponized to fight terrorists.  In other news, an Indian woman just ate 51 of them in two minutes.

A clever and effective television advertisement has been created by a Belgian group.  It only takes 30 seconds to watch; it's impressively well done.  If you like it, click the sublink.

MIT researchers have studied how clams burrow into the sand and are adapting the technique for a new generation of boat anchors.

Participants in a childhood vampire-hunting episode 50 years ago now say their behavior was NOT caused by reading comic books.

A German teenager buys a venomous cobra for a pet.  It escapes.  German authorities do not mess around.  Neighbors are not amused.

Very VERY expensive t-shirt.  Very VERY ugly.

A rather rudely-designed Popeye squirt gun.

A four-minute video of scenes excised from movies of the 1930s because the depictions were deemed to be hazardous to the public morality.  Your decision whether to view it or not...

"The Man Who Planted Trees" is an old (read: timeless) award-winning animation which I first saw decades ago.  I was delighted to find it (in three parts) on YouTube.

Still another video, this one of the hooded pitohui - the first bird ever documented to be poisonous.

Letting Go of My Father is an excellent essay by Jonathan Rauch in the current issue of The Atlantic, about the difficulties encountered while trying to assist with the care of a progressively incompetent and dependent parent.

The photos are unrelated miscellaneous images found without links to the primary source; I'll add credits if/when I can find such.

Recent posts at Neatorama

Richard Valentine Pitchford, whose professional name was Cardini, was known as perhaps the greatest sleight-of-hand artist of his time.  Here is a video of his famous "intoxicated English gentleman" routine, as shown on television in 1957.

A dental bridge created by using gold wire to attach teeth to one another.  No matter how long I look at it, it's hard for me to believe that it was created in 500 B.C., probably by an Etruscan.

The Machin head of Queen Elizabeth is the most reproduced work of art in the world.

Fish rained from the sky onto a small town in an Australian desert.  The locals were not excited; it seems this happens every so often.

A compilation of clips from 35 film noir movies.  If you love that genre, you'll love this montage.  And vice versa.

Thanks to Google, you can now ride the entire length of the trans-Siberian railway from the comfort of your desk, via a sequence of YouTube videos.  Warning: it's rather boring.

The number .999 repeating is equal to one.  Not really, really, really close to one, but equal to it.

Residents of Elk River, Minnesota have performed 1,300 random acts of kindness.

Mammoth hunting in Siberia is becoming big business as more and more carcasses are emerging from the permafrost.

Those of you who like academic science should check the blogs listed as nominees for the Research Blogging Awards.

A video shows footage of the streets of San Francisco in 1905 and 1906.  Watch out for the car/horse/pedestrian/bicycle.

A famous Pennsylvania forge that made souvenirs of the Hindenburg has just been destroyed by fire.

American collegiate grade inflation for the past 70+ years is graphed and discussed.  At a sublink you an look up grade inflation at your own college or university.

As with all my smorgasbord-type posts, the photos above are unrelated to Neatorama or to the subject matter in the links.  I've lost the source for all of these.

Addendum:  Many thanks, and a big hat-tip, to Richard, who just wrote a comment with information about the basketball photo above.  I should probably split that off as a separate post, with credit to the photographer.  Will put that on my list of things to do.  Soon.  In the meantime, here's the backstory behind the photo.

Recent posts at Neatorama

A video by a staff member at the Walker Art Center explains how they distinguish art from trash. (They put labels on the art).

Booksellers who buy books find unusual - and sometimes valuable - things inside them.

A coffin that screws into the ground.  Theoretically.

The world's largest book is an atlas.  Surprisingly, it's 350 years old.

A pair of very unusual 18th century baby rattles/teething toys.

A color video of the streets of London -- in 1927!

An optical illusion.

An earthquake centered in Illinois last month demonstrates that not all fault lines are in California.

It is now theoretically possible to clone Neanderthals.  Genetic material is available, and technology can probably accomplish the task.  The question is... should it be done?

Links to galleries of the decorative art of Mehndi.

A video of kids diving at a rocky swimming hole in Duluth.

"The Sign of the Horns" and what it means.

Before there was Express Mail, there were "feather letters."

A young woman has just beaten the world's best male bowlers in the world's most prestigious bowling tournament.

"Facilitated communication" is a bogus technique.

There are "Indians" in Russia who appear very similar to "American" Indians.

When Elizabethans went to the theater to watch plays by DeVere and Marlowe, the nobility ate crabs and the commoners ate oysters.

Braille is dying, replaced by electronic media, and some educators are worried about this turn of events.

The first movie of Alice in Wonderland was made in 1903.  Here it is - in its entirety.

Young chimpanzees do better on tests of short-term memory than college students.

"Alphabet Shoot" is another physics-based flash game.  I've solved all the levels except 24, 29, 30, and 3 of the custom levels.  Update - finally got 24 and one more of the customs.  Second update - FINALLY got 29; you have to load all three cannons first, then fire D, S, and F in succession.  And got 30 with the recommended combination shots.

As with all my smorgasbord-type posts, the photos above are unrelated.  These come from a National Geographic's International Photography Contest last year, and they all biggify quite nicely.

Recent posts at Neatorama

The online bookseller Abe Books has a "Weird Books Room."  These are real books about weird subjects or with weird titles. 

Salt trucks aren't just dump trucks.  They have a surprising array of high-tech capabilities.

A German fashion magazine has announced that it will use only amateur rather than professional models.

A drop of oil can find its way through a maze.  Video at the link.

A hundred photographs of lava from the U.S.G.S.

You need to know what a skimmer attached to an ATM is.

Comic book characters can have religious affiliations; some are well known and obvious, while others are subtle or implied.  Superman's earth family was Methodist; hundreds more are defined at the link.

The National Museum of Health and Medicine photo archives contains some amazing images.

If you are staying at certain British hotels, you can ask to have a bed-warmer sent to your room.  A human bed-warmer.

David Blaine explains in a TED talk how he trained himself to hold his breath. 

"No kicking penguins" is an official policy in Antarctica.  This explains how it got started.

A map of the U.S. with 50 equal-population "states."

Bald eagles don't just eat salmon and carrion.  They can also catch starlings.

The Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza.  Think they are situated in a remote desert?  Think again.

Recent technologic advances are making the Earth less detectable to E.T.s.  Could be good.  Could be sad.

"Wolf moon" and "perigee moon" defined.

A bird doing a "wormdance."

The resume of James Murray, first editor of the OED.

What to do if the accelerator sticks on your Toyota (or other vehicle).  Quick tip: hit the brakes.

A woman says she "will marry for health insurance."

Spray-on liquid glass.  It's for real.  It's a remarkable substance.  Some people are worried about it.

A Maryland corporation has announced that it will run for Congress.

Photo of a French Normandy veteran meeting POTUS.  Happy pic of the week.

Werner Herzog reinterprets "Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel."

And in what's become a new tradition, I'll use this post to decompress my folder of "pix for future posts."  I found these unrelated miscellaneous images at Izismile without links to the primary source; I'll add credits if/when I can find such.