Who's The Coward Now by Di.Jay

Weeee! We're happy to welcome T-shirt designer duo Di.Jay to the NeatoShop! Check out their nifty designs over at their Facebook page, then head on over to their NeatoShop page for more Tees. Your purchase helps support indie artists as well as this blog: Link

The Geek Award	Star Crest	Mushi	Frankie Loves Kitty

Di.Jay T-Shirts over at the NeatoShop | More Funny T-Shirts

Nicole Williams made this cake for a biology course. Is it tasty? It is biologically accurate? I can provide a confident answer to the first question.

Link -via Kitchen Overlord

The Yoda we recall from the original Star Wars trilogy was infinitely more realistic than the CGI Yoda in the prequels, even though we knew he was a Muppet, controlled by the masterful Frank Oz. This photo is one of 66 behind-the-scenes snapshots from the set of The Empire Strikes Back, in which we get to see George Lucas skinny, Darth Vader's stuntman, and Carrie Fisher flirting with the entire cast. Link -via reddit

YouTube Ioduremetallique uses his genius for evil. Okay, perhaps it's not felony type of evil, but definitely a misdemeanor. Watch how his robot hand creation steals a can of soda from the vending machine: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Gizmodo

As if you weren't already motivated to eat tacos, Sandra Denneler has made them even more seductive. Her cookie versions are made with Golden Oreos, chocolate Oreos, coconut and chewy candies. You can find her full recipe at the link.

Link -via Kitchen Fun with My Three Sons

Suits designed for deep sea divers have gone through a lot of designs, and the modern ones look as strange at the first ones. Dark Roasted Blend has illustrations and photographs from the entire history of deep sea diving. Shown is a French diving suit from the 19th century, although it might easily be mistaken for an alien from outer space. Link

Shakespearean Insult Bandages

Got a boo-boo? Now you can add insult to injury with the Shakespearean Insult Bandages from the NeatoShop. This great tin houses 15 bandages printed with classic Shakespearean insults. Every tin also contains a special free prize. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Health & Wellness. 

Link

Infographic : therealdano

Hayes Johnson of The Daft Club compiled the history of Daft Punk helmets, which makes an excellent reading while listening to their latest song: Link - via Laughing Squid

Derpy Hooves holds a special place in the heart of bronies. She was originally a nameless background pony accidentally drawn with googly eyes by animators. Bronies fell in love with the hapless pegasus and made numerous works of fan fiction, art and video about her. Derpy, you should know, is a mail courier, obsessed with muffins and a traveling companion to a Time Lord in the Doctor Whooves video series.

Directors of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic embraced the fan creation. They added Derpy to more backgrounds and even aired a scene with her speaking.

Ted and Wally's Premium Homemade Ice Cream in Omaha, Nebraska is feeling pony-curious lately. It recently created an ice cream flavor inspired by Derpy. The flavor is, appropriately, chocolate chip muffin.

Link -via Equestria Daily

(Images: Ted and Wally's, Doctor-G)

This street art by Jesse Olwen is on a wall, but it's not graffiti. Oh, it looks like graffiti, but it is attached to a wall and can be removed and displayed in a gallery without defacing the property. But while it's outside, it attaches a pleasant picture to a ruin.

I make paintings on wood (which I cut into a graffiti-ish shape. In this piece the words read "PUNK NOT DEAD"), then I paint imagery of things which I consider to be a nice to contrast to the the location I place it in. This piece shows a couple of kittens in front of roses hanging over a demolished pit a few blocks from my apartment here in Incheon South Korea. These are two 4'x4' pieces together, acrylic on plywood.  

See more of Olwen's artwork, both inside and outside, at his site. Link

Mladen Penev, whom we featured previously on Neatorama for his supernatural talent for grooming animals, has another project: This time, he tells us all about the power of books.

Link - via Design Dautore

Customers who demand excellence will always choose Smurfs over Snorks.

— 80's Don Draper (@80sDonDraper) April 26, 2013

"Rock us Dukakis?" You're fired.

— 80's Don Draper (@80sDonDraper) April 25, 2013

— 80's Don Draper (@80sDonDraper) April 24, 2013

The 80s! There was nothing better than life in the 80s, except possibly the 90s. It was all downhill after that. But back in the 80s, an ad man named Don Draper introduced us to rad new products. You can glimpse inside Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce at the Twitter feed of 80s Don Draper.

Link -via Pie Comic

(YouTube link)

The Art of Manliness shows you how to shave the old-fashioned way, like your grandpa did, with proper shaving cream and a double-edge safety razor. This kind of shave is economical, environmentally-friendly, and results in a better overall shave compared to using modern disposable razors. And the best part:

You’ll feel like a bad ass. It’s nice taking part in a ritual that great men like your grandfather, John F. Kennedy, and Teddy Roosevelt took part in.

Find complete instructions and links to recommended products at The Art of Manliness. Link-Thanks, Brett!

Need a liver? In the future, you can 3D Bioprint one. Keith Murphy of biotech company Organovo (previously on Neatorama) presented advances in the process of bioprinting human liver tissues:

The liver is incredibly tiny -- just half a millimetre thick and four millimetres wide. Yet this minute organ, with little visual resemblance to the real thing in its petri dish home, manages to replicate key processes done by the real thing. It produced the protein albumin and synthesised plasma glycoproteins fibrinogen and transferrin. These are all vital in getting nutrients, hormones and drugs to the blood and the rest of the body. It also generated fat-carrying cholesterol. For its detoxification functions, the liver also needs to produce certain enzymes including CYP 1A2 and CYP 3A4 -- which this tiny organ precursor also did. Its albumin production was between five and nine times more than in 2D flat cell structures engineered.

Liat Clark of Wired UK has the story: Link

Travis Jonker and his team work at an elementary school library. They had some old auditorium seats left over from renovations. They were functional as seating, but Jonker and his co-workers turned them into advertisements for works of children's literature. Click on Continue reading to view more.

Link -via School Library Journal

The article at Mother Jones is titled Why Your Supermarket Only Sells 5 Kinds of Apples, but it barely touches on that question (the answer seems to be "because agribusiness"). It's really about John Bunker and his quest to cultivate heritage apple varieties before they are lost forever. See, apples are hard to breed. If you want more apples like the ones on a certain tree, you need to clone it by grafting.

Even when abandoned, an apple tree can live more than 200 years, and, like the Giving Tree in Shel Silverstein's book, it will wait patiently for the boy to return. There is a bent old Black Oxford tree in Hallowell, Maine, that is approximately two centuries old and still gives a crop of midnight-purple apples each fall. In places like northern New England, the Appalachian Mountains, and Johnny Appleseed's beloved Ohio River Valley—agricultural byways that have escaped the bulldozer—these centenarians hang on, flickering on the edge of existence, their identity often a mystery to the present homeowners. And John Bunker is determined to save as many as he can before they, and he, are gone.

Bunker is an apple detective, who looks for such old fruit-bearing trees in order to preserve their genes by grafting. Read about his work, and the history of apple cultivation in America. Link  -via Boing Boing

Most of us dream about retiring early and living a long, happy life with complete financial security doing what we love. But can that be done without winning the lottery or getting millions from selling your dotcom?

The answer is yes, according to Mister Money Mustache, who's living proof that one can retire at 30 years old after working regular jobs with regular salaries.

In an interview with Kelly Johnson of The Washington Post, he told us how he did it:

Embrace challenge and shun convenience for its own sake. Ask, “Will this really make me happier in the long run?” about all life decisions. Realize that happiness comes from accomplishment and personal growth, rather than from luxury products. Seek out voluntary discomfort as a way to become stronger, rather than running from it. Develop a healthy sense of self-mockery, and acknowledge that you are a wimp in many ways right now (and only by acknowledging it can you improve). Practice optimism. And of course, ride a bike.

That’s pretty high-level stuff. If you just want the meat and potatoes: Live close to work. Cook your own food. Take care of your own house, garden, hair and body. Don’t borrow money for cars, and don’t drive ridiculous ones. Embrace nature as the best source of recreation. Cancel your TV service. Use a prepaid cellphone. And of course, ride a bike!

He wrote on his blog MrMoneyMustache:

For almost two years, I’ve been preaching a different brand of financial advice from what you see in the newspapers and magazines. The standard line is that life is hard and expensive, so you should keep your nose to the grindstone, clip coupons, save hard for your kids’ college educations, and save any tiny slice of your salary that remains into a 401(k) plan. And pray that nothing goes wrong in the 40 years of career work that it will take to get yourself enough savings to enjoy a brief retirement.

Mr. Money Mustache’s advice? Almost all of that is nonsense: Your current middle-class life is an Exploding Volcano of Wastefulness, and by learning to see the truth in this statement, you will easily be able to cut your expenses in half – leaving you saving half of your income. Or two thirds, or more.

Links: MrMoneyMustache Blog | Interview at The Washington Post

Pee A Little Wet Wipes 

Are you looking for the perfect gift of friendship for your favorite Germaphobe? You need the Pee A Little Wipes from the NeatoShop. This humorous pack includes 10 wet wipes and features the saying, " Great Friends Like You Make Me Pee My Pants (a little). 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fun and funny Health & Wellness items. 

Link

Now, wait until I tell you what's in it first! Put down the mug and let me describe Barbara Kiebel's breakfast treat. It has Maker's Mark bourbon, vanilla ice cream, scratch whipped cream made with bourbon and scratch hot fudge made with espresso and coffee liqueur. Okay, now you can drink.

Link -via Tasteologie

(YouTube link)

You know how it felt when you found out your boss was paying a co-worker more money than you for doing the same job? In this excerpt from a TED Talk, Frans de Waal presents a classic experiment in which capuchin monkeys were confronted with such unfairness. You'll get a kick out of the way the monkey reacts. You can see the full talk called Moral Behavior in Animals, which covers empathy, reciprocity, and cooperation, as well as fairness, at the TED site. Link -via Viral Viral Videos

Gallery and News Story -via Weird Universe

Hey, do you need an excuse to put off spring cleaning or mowing the lawn for another few minutes? Or maybe you want to take a break between chores. I know I do! Then stop for a bit and check out all the things that happened this past week at Neatorama. You may have missed something great!  

Eddie Deezen told us The Favorite Books of 32 Famous People. And Neatorama readers gave us a lot more favorites in the comments -and we'd like yours, too.

A Template for Scientific Press Releases and Science News Articles came from the Annals of Improbable Research. Remember it the next time you read a science press release.

Uncle John's Bathroom Reader brought us The Birth of the Dishwasher. Meanwhile, at my house, we are experiencing the death of the dishwasher.

And How to Win Friends and Inoculate People was reprinted from mental_floss magazine. With a bonus video.

We had two brainteasers from the Bathroom Readers Institute this week: Bridge Tournament and Diplomacy. Look for more this weekend!

In the What Is It? game this week, the pictured object is a chain weight that was used for training a gaited horse. Craig Clayton was the first with that answer, and so wins a t-shirt front he NeatoShop! The funniest answer came from ColShorts, who took a complete left turn from what everyone else was thinking and said, "What snakes wear when the roads are icy." That's good for a t-shirt from the NeatoShop, too! Thanks to everyone who played along this week. See the answers to all this week's mystery items at the What Is It? blog.

The post with the most comments this past week (excluding giveaways) was The Favorite Books of 32 Famous People, followed by the debate on Which Is Better? Tabasco Sauce or Sriracha and Being Black in China.

The most popular post of the week was Professor Encourages His Students to Cheat in Order to Teach Them Game Theory, followed by Which Is Better? Tabasco Sauce or Sriracha, and coming in third was The Big Duluth's Frightening Ceramics. All three of those blockbusters were posted by John Farrier. Way to go, John!

The post that garnered the most ♥s was Professor Encourages His Students to Cheat in Order to Teach Them Game Theory, followed by a tie between Expensive Railroad and Edwardian London and Cork in second place. Thanks for adding ♥s to let us know what posts you like!  

The post that was sent out via Neatorama's email button the most this week was Russian Victory? Which brings us to our Usability Tip of the Week. Yes, you can email a single post from Neatorama to someone you know would be interested. All you need to do is click on the post title, then look at the row of buttons across the bottom. Clicking the email button will bring up a window in which you can put your friend's addresses and some snarky remarks about the post you're sending them. It's easy!

Yikes! This photograph popped up on Neatorama's Facebook page. It's a test of a bullet-proof vest, taken in 1923. You'd have to have a lot of confidence in your product! This is just an example of the neat things you'll find at Facebook in addition to what's on the main site.

The NeatoShop now has a special section with suggestions for Mothers Day gifts. But that's just the beginning -if your mother has a special interest in a particular movie or TV show, hobbies, favorite characters, or would like some unique office supplies or kitchen gadgets, we've got a wonderful selection for the occasion. And if you know someone who is graduating, the NeatoShop is a great place to find a unique gift for them!

As always, we welcome your compliments, constructive criticism, suggestions, and tips. Have a great week!

Captain Picard now has more options than just a saucer separation. T.J. Wilferd's Enterprise-E transforms into a fighting robot. Is there fan fiction to back up this creation? You bet! You can read Wilferd's crossover short story at the link.

Link -via Geekologie