There's a reason some sites ask for, or require, a password that contains both letters and numbers. The first column describes passwords. The other columns tell you how long it takes a hacker to figure them out. Don't make it easy for someone to figure yours out. Link

(Image credit: The Book of Joe)

I've found myself watching a lot of Law & Order reruns lately, mostly because you can find it most hours of the day on various TV channels. Now we have statistics that track the outcomes of the cases in each season. Not only that, but they are compared with what was actually going on in New York City at the time -the NYC murder rate and the politics of municipal law enforcement. Some of the changes in the show over time reflect the real world, and other changes were made for the TV audience. Read the analysis at, appropriately enough, Overthinking It. Link -via Metafilter

It's time once again for the Fill in the Bubble Frenzy with boy genius Mal and his talking dog Chad! What should he be saying in this empty speech bubble? Tell us and you might win any t-shirt available in the NeatoShop -take a look around, pick one out and leave your t-shirt choice with your submission in the comments. If you don't specify a t-shirt with your entry, you forfeit the prize. Enter as many times as you like (text only, please), but leave only one entry per comment. For inspiration, check out Mal and Chad’s comic strip adventures by Stephen McCranie at malandchad.com. Have fun and good luck!

Update: Darrel came up with the winning line this week: "Boy somebody needs a Tic Tac." That wins him a t-shirt from the NeatoShop!

Isn't he sweet? You may have seen this picture around the web the last few days. No, It's not a tiny polar bear -it's plush! And you can make one yourself, with a pattern from Etsy seller Tatiana Scalozub. Link -via Arbroath

The following is an article from Uncle John's Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader.

Last week, we told you about the battle to end the sale of adulterated milk. Part II is the story of the fight to pasteurize the U.S. milk supply. It's an instructive tale. In spite of proof that pasteurization could save lives, Americans resisted it because it was a new idea... and because it "cost too much."

SOLID PROGRESS

During the latter part of the 19th century, improvements were made in the quality of milk sold in the United States.

Bottles: In 1884, for example, Dr. Hervey G. Thatcher patented the first practical milk bottle with a sealable top. He got the idea while standing in line in the street for his own milk a year earlier. When the little girl ahead of him dropped her filthy rag doll into the milk dealer's open milk can, the dealer just shook the doll off, handed it back to the little girl, then ladled Thatcher's milk as if nothing happened.

Thatcher's bottle wasn't a solution to all of raw milk's problems, but at least it kept impurities out of the milk after it left the dairy. Many dairies hated the bottles because they were expensive and broke relatively easily, but they caught on with the public and were soon in use all over the country.

The Lactometer: In the early 1890s, New York State began regulating the content of milk using a lactometer, a newly invented device that could measure the amount of milk solids in milk. For the first time, it was possible to compare pure milk with a test sample of a dairy's milk to see if it had been watered down or adulterated. If the milk tested didn't contain the same amount of milk solids as pure milk, the milk dealer could be fined or penalized.

BATTLING BACTERIA

But by far, the most important breakthroughs were scientific. The 1880s and 1890s were a period of great advancement in the understanding of bacteria and its role in causing disease.

In 1882, for example, A German scientist named Rupert Koch discovered that bovine tuberculosis, a form of tuberculosis found in cattle, could be spread to humans through diseased milk. This form of tuberculosis attacked the glands, intestines, and bones, frequently killing the afflicted or leaving them deformed for life.

"Children seem to be especially susceptible to bovine tuberculosis," James Cross Gilbin writes in Milk: The Fight for Purity. "[Victims] often spent years trapped into spinal frames...designed to prevent deformity while the body slowly overcame the infection."

VIAGRA FOR YOUR AFTERLIFE

(Image credit: Flickr user sweart)

Packing for the hereafter just got easier. According to a Chinese tradition, when a person dies, mourners should burn replicas of household items so the deceased can enjoy these in the afterlife. The hope is that if the dead are appeased with burnt offerings, their ghosts will refrain from haunting the living. But like many traditions, this one has evolved to reflect the times. Today, it's not uncommon to see mourners burning paper replicas of cars, laptops, credit cards, iPods, Louis Vuitton handbags, or even bottles of Viagra!

SPINNING INTO CONTROL

(Image credit: Flickr user Anton Kan)

For members of the Sufi Mawlawi order, pondering the nature of life can literally make your head spin. As part of the Sema ceremony, these "Whirling" Dervishes meditate by twirling in circles, an act that's meant to bring them closer to Allah. But don't mistake the spinning for carefree fun. In order to perform the centuries-old ritual, each dancer must undergo 1,001 days of training in seclusion during which they study music, poetry, and Sufi prayers. The clothing is also distinct; participants wear white gowns that flare out like poodle skirts, and they can twirl in ecstasy for hours.

Louis Mantin inherited a fortune and became a patron of the arts and of high living. He constructed a fine mansion in his home of Moulins, France and filled it with custom woodwork, relics from antiquity, and art. Mantin died in 1905, and had stipulated in his will that his home should become a museum in 100 years.

Mantin only had a few years to indulge his aesthetic fantasies. Knowing that his death was approaching, he made a will in which he made sure his treasured house would be saved.

"In the will, he says that he wants the people of Moulins in 100 years time to be able to see what was the life of a cultured gentleman of his day," said assistant curator Maud Leyoudec.

"A bachelor with no children, he was obsessed with death and the passage of time. It was his way of becoming eternal."

When the 100-year mark passed, the house remained abandoned and in no shape to open to the public. Isabelle de Chavagnac, a descendant of Mantin's, threatened to exercise her right to inherit the mansion if it didn't open as a museum. She didn't really want the estate, but her actions forced the local government to allocate funds for renovation. The house then opened as a museum, as Mantin wished, in 2010. BBC News has a video tour of the home. Link -via Gizmodo

(YouTube link)

Talk about unintended consequences! This video shows what would more likely happen to Endor at the end of Return of the Jedi if the normal laws of physics applied to the Star Wars universe. -via Boing Boing

Archaeologists have announced the discovery of the world's oldest winemaking facility. The winery was found in an Armenian cave near the village of Areni -the same cave where the oldest shoe ever was found last year. Carbon dating shows that the winery dates back 6,100 years!

In September 2010 archaeologists completed excavations of a large, 2-foot-deep (60-centimeter-deep) vat buried next to a shallow, 3.5-foot-long (1-meter-long) basin made of hard-packed clay with elevated edges.

The installation suggests the Copper Age vintners pressed their wine the old-fashioned way, using their feet, Areshian said.

Juice from the trampled grapes drained into the vat, where it was left to ferment, he explained.

The wine was then stored in jars—the cool, dry conditions of the cave would have made a perfect wine cellar, according to Areshian, who co-authored the new study, published Tuesday in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Analysis of residue found malvidin, a plant pigment found in red wine. Read more about the discovery at National Geographic News. Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!

(Image credit: Hans Barnard)

Brian Westerfield approached a man in a Nampa, Idaho Walmart store who had just bought a smartphone. He grabbed the phone and fled.

He got away the first time but when the victim and police got together they came up with a plan to call the stolen phone and talk to the man who took it.

"The suspect didn't know that he was talking with the police," Sgt. Mike Wagoner said. "(They) dickered over the price for the phone and so when the suspect did show up the police obviously where there to meet him."

They arrested him after he tried to run he tripped and fell face first onto the ground.

It apparently didn't occur to Westerfield to wonder how the "buyer" got the phone number when he didn't yet know it himself. http://www.kboi2.com/news/local/113142469.html -via Gizmodo

Street artist Agata Olek covered the Charging Bull sculpture in Manhattan with a pink and purple crocheted skin! But why?

"I wanted to make it for all those people who couldn't make it to their families and for those people who don't have coats and don't have any money."

Olek is originally from Poland, but when she couldn't make it home to see her family, she thought of all the others who might be spending this holiday far from their loved ones.

The crocheted Charging Bull is her Christmas gift to NYC, she says, and a tribute to the sculptor of the bull, Arturo Di Modica, who placed the bull on Wall Street just before Christmas of 1989.

The sweater only lasted a couple of hours- long enough to get its picture taken before Bowling Green park employees removed it. Link -via Laughing Squid

The following is an article from Uncle John's Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader.

If you're a fan of cheesy films like Manos: The Hand of Fate, Plan 9 From Outer Space, and Troll 2, you'll love this one. Uncle John saw it last when our local Bad Film Society screened it, and as he was watching, it occurred to him that it actually gave new meaning to the word "bad." (But somehow he couldn't stop talking about how great it was.)

THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN

On June 2003, a film called The Room premiered in a handful of Los Angeles theaters. It's the story of a love triangle between Johnny, a banker; Lisa, his girlfriend; and Johnny's best friend Mark. The film was the brainchild of Tommy Wiseau, the actor who plays Johnny. Wiseau wrote, directed, produced, and distributed the film. He financed The Room, too, shelling out $6 million of his own money to make it, plus thousands more on print and TV ads and a single giant billboard overlooking busy Highland Avenue in Los Angeles.

The Room was Wiseau's first feature film. He hoped to use it to launch a Hollywood career... but all he succeeded in doing was blowing $6 million in record time. The Room played to nearly empty theaters for just two weeks before it was yanked from the screen; in that time it had grossed only $1,900, not enough to cover even one month's rent on the Highland Avenue billboard. Put another way, for every million Wiseau spent, The Room earned less than $320, making it one of the worst box-office flops in history.



CITIZEN PAIN

Is there anything about The Room that isn't bad? The acting is stunningly incompetent- none of the actors had ever had a major film role before, and Wiseau was incapable of providing decent direction. And the love scene between Johnny and Lisa is creepy (picture a Troll doll having its way with a seat cushion, except that Lisa is the cushion). Wiseau recycles the footage in a second love scene 20 minutes after the first, so you get to watch it twice.

As a screenwriter, Wiseau was even worse. New characters appear out of nowhere and aren't properly identified, so it's never clear who they are. A number of subplots -such as drug abuse, unrequited love, and bad real estate deals- are introduced, then quickly abandoned. ("I got the results of the test back. I definitely have breast cancer," Lisa's mother tells her, and the subject never comes up again.) And though the thickly-accented Wiseau refuses to this day to say where he comes from, English is clearly not his first language. The Room is full of clunky, confusing, and unintentionally funny dialog: When a (never-identified) character catches Lisa and Mark kissing at Johnny's birthday party, and confronts them, Mark yells, "Leave your stupid comments in your pocket!"

The Silver Snail featured a family of AT-ATs opening their gifts on Christmas morning in the storefront window. See more pictures at Star Wars: The Old Republic. http://www.swtorstrategies.com/2010/12/at-at-family-xmas.html -via Buzzfeed

All of us at Neatorama are excited about the New Car Giveaway this Tuesday in collaboration with mental_floss and resila.com. To help you prepare, David Israel posted a series of tutorials on QR codes which will be used in the contest: QR Codes, More About QR Codes, and QR Codes as Art. Even those who can't be in New York City for the giveaway will learn a lot about the new technology. David will have more information about the giveaway coming up Monday!

We started off the week with a real treat last Sunday. A successful viral video turned out to be a side effect of a holiday greeting Brian Kidd made for Neatorama! The result was Merry Christmas from the Unipiper!

Other holiday offerings included The Santa Chronicles from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

And Jill Harness took us on a holiday tour with Christmas Celebrations Around the World.

From the Museum of Possibilities, we got a look at different incarnations of The Yucksack.

Does the color red make a bull angry? The Annals of Improbable Research did some mythbusting in the article Red: Bull.

Does Rubbing a Boo-Boo Really Make It Better? (and Other Questions about Pain in the Brain) were answered by our friends at mental_floss magazine.

Over at NeatoBambino, this week's subjects included sex education, statistics on due dates, and an update on Erik Martin, aka Electron Boy!

We kept you busy with Neato-Puzzle #10, which you can still work on this weekend.

We had a great response to the Name That Weird Invention! contest. Ultimately Foosnark rose to the top with the name arBra, a clever palindrome. old_joe came in second with the Dance Enhancer. Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop!

Mal and Chad's Fill in the Bubble Frenzy came around on Wednesday. The winning line is "The overworked elfs on strike holding Santa will never suspect we attack with a Christmas trebuchet!" Congratulations, drewp, who wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop!

In the What Is It? game this week, the object is an old gambling die. shin knew what it is, and Sonnuvah had the funniest answer: a 35-pound dumbbell buried up to its neck! Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop.

If you ever get caught up on everything here at Neatorama, you'll find lots more links to keep you busy and to share with others at the NeatoHub!

(YouTube link) Maru has a Christmas stocking. It's almost as much fun as a box! He will now have a very Maru Christmas. -via Buzzfeed