Tim Harris has Down Syndrome and a restaurant in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Tim's Place bills itself as "The world's friendliest restaurant." Seeing the joy Tim puts into his work, I can believe it! However, Tim didn't just luck into his position -he gained as much experience as he could by working at various restaurants and attended Eastern New Mexico University to earn certificates in Food Service and Office Skills. Link -via reddit
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A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a computer algorithm the detects movements that are so small or subtle as to be imperceptible to human eyes. The program then amplifies these movements kinetically or by color changes to the point that we can see them in video recordings. The program is called Eulerian Video Magnification.
The team originally developed the program to monitor neonatal babies without making physical contact. But they quickly learned that the algorithm can be applied to other videos to reveal changes imperceptible to the naked eye. Prof. William T. Freeman, a leader on the team, imagines its use in search and rescue, so that rescuers could tell from a distance if someone trapped on a ledge, say, is still breathing.
“Once we amplify these small motions, there’s like a whole new world you can look at,” he said.
Some of the applications suggested for this new technology include medical diagnosis, finding oil, seeing how much a building sways, detecting lies, assessing manufacturing processes, and even determining whether a poker player is bluffing. See a video with more examples at the New York Times technology blog, Bits. Link -via Digg
Do-Ho Suh, an innovative artist that we've featured previously, just unveiled this amazing sculpture at the New Orleans Museum of Art. "Karma" is a 23-foot tower of 98 men perched on each other's shoulders and obstructing each other's vision. What does it mean?
Are you looking to breathe a little life into your dark and dreary home decor? You need the drop dead gorgeous Golden Skull Foam Prop from the NeatoShop. This life-size skull is made from squeezable, soft foam. It is not a toy, but it does make a fantastic oversized stress ball.
The Golden Skull Foam Prop is handcrafted in the USA by local artisans. No two are exactly alike. Paint details may vary.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Skull items.
Photo: Thomas
Bresson/Flickr
You'd be forgiven if you thought the picture above is of a hummingbird. It's actually a moth aptly named the Hummingbird Hawk Moth (Macroglossum stellatarum).
Ark in Space has more on this marvelous species:
With no legs or claws – and certainly no beak what you have here is a moth. No ordinary moth either – just take a look at that tongue. In truth, it isn’t actually a tongue. You may well ask, then, if it isn’t a tongue, what on earth is it?
There aren’t many – if any – tongues that can do that and it has a different function. What that amazing body part is called is a proboscis. That is the name given to an extended appendage from the head of an animal. This elongated organ is for sucking (more about that later) and it is also known as a haustellum. It is made up of two tubes that are held together by hooks. Strangely (and even scarily) enough these tubes can be separated – unhooked – when the moth needs to clean it.
Previously on Neatorama: World's Weirdest Moths
Add this to the Swanson Pyramid of Greatness. After all, it's full, thick and square facial hair as well as thick and impenetrable torso. It's good to see that Leonardo da Vinci gave 100% and not 110% when he created this. Because 110% is impossible. Only idiots give that.
But don't cry at the beautiful sight of the Ron Swanson Mona Lisa. Because crying is only acceptable at funerals and the Grand Canyon.
Devin Graham, also known as devinsupertramp, brings us the adventures of a group of extreme cliff jumpers and their 300-foot rope swing. And they did it over and over to make sure they got all the right camera angles. You can see a behind-the-scenes video with more information. Do not try this! I saw Wile E. Coyote pull this stunt in a film more than once, and it always ended with him slamming face-first into the cliff wall. -Thanks, Dallin Smith!
Since we've helped unleash Harlem Shake into the unsuspecting Interweb a while ago (sorry!), it has gone viral the world over. But the Harlem Shake hasn't reached its full potential until Grumpy Cat joins in on the fun.
Behold, Grumpy Cat does the Harlem Shake. You simply should not miss this:
Hit YouTube or go to Link [YouTube]
He's no good to me creamed. Give the bounty hunter what he is due--Captain Solo alive. Tommy Filth refurbished a KitchenAid mixer to look like the infamous Boba Fett. He writes:
[...] I was taking it apart I got some inspiration for the paint job and this is what came out of it, still needs a phase board for speed control and two decals to be applied to the sides but I couldn't wait to share.
Link -via That's Nerdalicious!
So maybe you watched the Academy Awards last night, and you consider yourself a true movie buff. If you did, then no doubt you're aware that Daniel Day-Lewis became the first man to win three Oscar for Best Actor. That's quite a mantlepiece display! But there are eight other actors who've taken the prize home twice. Mental_floss challenges you to name all eight in two minutes. Good luck! Link
This reminds me a little of the guy with the homemade flying machine in the movie The Road Warrior, although he had helicopter blades. A "commuter" of sorts was spotted refueling at a gas station in Russia. Too bad he had to wait at the runway highway so he could merge into traffic for takeoff! -via I Have Seen the Whole of the Internet
Jeff O'Neal writes:
True story: I bribed a librarian (after a brief conversation about my general reading interests) to constantly stick new/interesting things in my hold queue. Best. Thing. Ever. It’s like Netflix for the library, now!
He's talking about what librarians call readers' advisory. In a readers' advisory reference interview, the librarian asks questions about the patron's reading tastes and suggests books to read based upon the patron's answers.
But O'Neal's librarian went even further. S/he automatically adds relevant reading materials to his hold queue without being specifically requested to do so. Kim Ukura thinks this is a great idea that could be expanded:
I am in love with this idea. How fun would it be to task a well-read person to develop a personally curated queue of books that will arrive for you to borrow intermittently, at no charge, based on what is new or exciting that seems to fit with your general reading tastes? It sounds almost too good to be true!
Most readers already find ways to build their own “librarian” for recommendations, finding friends or bloggers or book reviewers who seem to have similar tastes then seeking out their recommendations. But that system still has an element of choice — this Frankenstein’s monster of a librarian may cobble together a list of books that seem interesting, but you as the reader still end up making the choice of what to buy/borrow/bypass.
Having a real-life personal librarian could be so much better. Once the relationship was built, and with enough feedback about which books were interesting and which books fell flat, you could almost guarantee that your personal librarian would pick out some things that would be of interest to you. And since it’s a queue of library books, the decision about whether to spend money on an unfamiliar book is eliminated, making the barrier to trying something new really low.
Link -via @brainpicker | Photo: radical.librarian
Beam of electrons moving in a circle, due to the presence of a magnetic
field. Purple light is emitted along the electron path, due to the electrons
colliding with gas molecules in the bulb.
(Photo: Marcin
Bialek)
Oh, how I love you guys. In our recent post A Fiery Dance on the Sun, Neatoramanaut PlasmaGryphon kindly took the time to explain to us the physics behind solar flares. In the explanation, there was a link to Wikipedia article on Lorentz force, where I found this fascinating image of a circular beam of electrons in a Teltron tube. Neat, huh? (Thanks PlasmaGryphon!)
How does Bed Bath & Beyond manage to stack their towels so perfectly? The answer is, they don't. It's all lies. LIES!
Flowers are pretty and colorful to you and me, but to a bee, they're downright electrifying. You see, bees can sense the electric field that surrounds a flower:
Dominic Clarke and Heather Whitney from the University of Bristol have shown that bumblebees can sense the electric field that surrounds a flower. They can even learn to distinguish between fields produced by different floral shapes, or use them to work out whether a flower has been recently visited by other bees. Flowers aren’t just visual spectacles and smelly beacons. They’re also electric billboards.
Learn how a flower's electric field is actually also useful for bees as it tells them whether other bees have visited it before. Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science explains: Link
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