This will be the last opportunity for the Neatobot to wear his London Olympics t-shirt. The closing ceremonies are tomorrow evening, and we'll see the official handoff of the Summer Games to Rio for 2016. Then maybe things will settle down a bit. I'm talking about more than just the Olympics. My kids started back to school last week, and the first thing they did was take a four-day weekend for a local festival. Meanwhile, I've been trying to get used to the new site here at Neatorama. The more I use it, the easier it is, and I'm lovingthe new functionality. Plus, I'm up to my elbows in tomatoes and beans and canning jars. So a little return to normalcy is a good thing! We had some great feature article this weeK:
Jill Harness showed us 7 Amazing Natural Landmarks. And yes, you can visit them!
Eddie Deezen gave us 12 More Baseball Feats That Only Happened Once, a continuation of his earlier post on the same subject.
The Nutmeg Wars. Or, how the Dutch East India Company destroyed a civilization for a pricy spice, courtesy of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
The Annals of Improbable Research gave us On the Gradual Diminution of the Human Head.
10 Scales Worth Posting an Article About originally had "Printing" in the title, because it came from mental_floss magazine.
Neatorama is rolling out our photo gallery feature with some interesting sets of photos that are easy to look through. First we had Bacon Demon, featuring scary meat sculptures. Rock And Roll! had David Israel's pictures of the largest boulder ever transported in modern times. In Virtual Nanoscopy: The Ridiculously Zoomable Cell, we saw the inside of a zebrafish embryo, cell by cell. The Whimsical Art of Joana Vasconcelos was quite easy to se in gallery form. There are others, but those will get you used to the new feature.
We also revealed what's in the ParaNorman Mystery Box! The goodies included a personal letter from someone who know way too much about Alex. The winners of the contest associated with the mystery box will be announced soon.
In the What Is It? game, the mystery object is a 35mm film leader retriever, used to retrieve film that has been accidentally wound into the cassette. Berhard was the first with the correct answer, so he wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! The funniest answer came from The Professor, who said "This is a nitpicker, designed to extract tiny slivers of controversy from the finest cracks in logic." That's an answer that deserves a t-shirt! Thanks for playing, everyone. You can see the answers to all the mystery items of the week at the What Is It? blog.
The post with the most comments this week was Amtrak's $16 Burger. No other post came close (except the giveaways). We get complaints about posting political articles on Neatorama, but that seems to be the only ones we get comments on! Hey, why don't you all try out the new comment system, and show us what kind of items you really like to see on Neatorama. You can sign up for a Neatorama account if you haven't already, leave comments, reply to other commenters, and vote for your favorite posts with the little heart at the top of each one. That way, we'll know what you really want to see more of! You'll find complete instructions here.
There are more new features that we will be introducing gradually at the new Neatorama, so check back often, and jump in and play with us!
I know! That's just creepy!