It's a novel! It's a philosophy! It's the instruction manual for a crazy cult! Atlas Shrugged could be all of those things. Then again, maybe it's just about a little Russian girl who really hated growing up around Bolsheviks.

Ayn Rand was a woman who knew how to sell philosophy. As the founder of Objectivism—a belief in the power of the individual and "the virtue of selfishness"—Rand had something going for her that great thinkers like Aristotle and Kierkegaard didn't: She got her start in Hollywood.

After immigrating to the United States from the Soviet Union in 1926, Rand managed to sign on with famed film producer-director Cecil B. DeMille as an extra in his movie The King of Kings. An aspiring screenwriter, she soon had the connections she needed to begin hawking her wares. By 1932, she'd sold her first screenplay and overseen the production of one of her plays. In other words, Ayn (pronounced "Eye-n," not "Ann") knew how to produce for a general audience—not just the intellectual elite. So when she delved into philosophy and began to formulate the ideas that would eventually become Objectivism, the resulting works (namely The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged) read more like blockbuster melodramas than philosophy dissertations.

The Rise of John Galt

Rand's ability to write for a general audience is certainly one of the reasons Atlas Shrugged landed the No. 1 spot on Modern Library's readers' poll of "100 Best Novels of the 20th Century." But just like the crowd-pleasing popcorn flicks that don't have a prayer of winning an Oscar, literary critics often treat Rand's novels like something the cat coughed up. Atlas Shrugged was nowhere to be found in the "official" Modern Library ranking, and in 2000, a columnist for the liberal-minded Salon.com slammed it as "a novelization of Mein Kampf by Barbara Cartland."

Whether you see it as a 1,200-page doorstop or the book that changed your life, Atlas Shrugged is a good introduction to Rand's philosophy. The story takes place in what is essentially the author's vision of the future America. After liberals gain control of the government, federal officials immediately begin imposing regulations on businesses that are intended to help the weaker members of society. As a result, the main character, railroad executive Dagny Taggart, is forced to give up her company's most lucrative route to a smaller operator. Meanwhile, steelmaker Henry Rearden is prevented from selling his latest metal invention because the government believes it might hurt his competitors by giving him an advantage. Laws are passed that require all patents to be signed over to federal officials, and businessmen are no longer allowed to focus their companies on profits. Instead, the government tells them they must work to benefit society, even if that means running their operations at a loss.

Soon, all of the capitalists have their hands tied. The so-called "looters" take charge, causing the natural order of the economy to be subverted, and millions are given jobs because they need the work, not because they can actually perform the labor. With incompetents and slackers staffing important positions, America's infrastructure begins to fall apart. Railroads stop, bridges fall, cities go dark, and a mysterious pirate named Ragnar Danneskjöld pillages the few ships that still carry goods to America.

Willing to abandon their assets for the government to squander, America's executives and businessmen begin to disappear altogether. When Dagny finally finds the "striking" industrialists in a secret Colorado valley, she sees they've created their own society based on pure selfishness and greed. The valley has banks, mines, artists, oil producers, engineers—everything that made America great in the first place. Its founder and guiding spirit, John Galt, is also there, serving as a kind of magnetic prophet and the leader of the strike. Later, Galt is arrested and subjected to torture after he takes over the airwaves and speaks out against the government. But the strikers—now joined by Dagny—rescue him and return to the valley. Eventually, the collectivist practices governing the country lead to total collapse. Galt, Dagny, and the rest of the strikers, safe in the valley, prepare their return.

The Author as An Icon

Atlas Shrugged, and the philosophy of Objectivism itself, is an impassioned, individualistic response to what Rand saw as the evil of collectivism—the wastefulness of human beings expending energy to help the weak and the lazy. That might sound harsh, but it's important to understand that Rand came by her hatred of collectivism through painful personal experiences. Born in 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia, a young Ayn Rand (her birth name was Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum) grew up in the midst of the Russian Revolution. As part of the government's many efforts to promote the socialist cause, she witnessed the Bolsheviks confiscating her father's pharmacy—thus taking away the fruits of all his labor and using them, at his expense, for the collective good.

Not surprisingly, Ayn Rand came to admire the United States as a truly free land, and she immigrated in 1926. After her screenwriting stint, she started writing novels, beginning with We the Living in 1936. In 1943, she hit bestseller status with The Fountainhead—her first real public foray into putting Objectivist ideas into a fictional plot. Incredibly, the book was rejected by 12 publishers before finally being accepted. But the wild success of The Fountainhead only whet Rand's appetite to delve further into Objectivism, so when she finally finished Atlas Shrugged in 1957, publishers were more than willing to pick it up.

Although a great financial success, Atlas Shrugged was also her last work of fiction. After its publication, Rand devoted herself fully to writing and editing Objectivist works and to running "The Collective," her ironically named circle of close (some say cultish) admirers. And while The Collective broke apart in the late 1960s, when it became a little too "free-love" for some of its members, that hasn't stopped the legions of Rand followers from growing. Today, Ayn Rand fans vastly outnumber the membership of The Collective, and they are a devoted bunch. The Ayn Rand Institute (a.k.a., The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism), founded after Rand's death in 1982, publishes a wide variety of Randian works. And they all continue to inspire passionate devotion in their fans.

Atlas Shrugged continues to inspire new readers, as well. On one hand, it's easy to read the novel as a period piece. After all, when it was published in the 1950s, liberal New Deal programs were growing steadily, and unions were at the height of their power. To readers, it must have seemed like the "looters" were taking over. But the book takes on a very different meaning today. With most politicians in both parties praising the efficiencies created by deregulation and privatization, Rand's nightmare vision might seem increasingly remote. Many, however, see it as a sign that perhaps Ayn Rand's ideas are starting to have the widespread impact she'd hoped for.

We Are Randian, Hear Us Roar

For a philosophy broadly known as Objectivism, there sure are a lot of subjective opinions out there about it. Plenty of people dig it and plenty dog it, but those in the former category definitely seem to have a common thread—they're kind of a big deal. The following are just a few of the A-list Randians out there.

John Stossel, ABC correspondent and co-anchor for 20/20. Speaking to The Daily Princetonian, Stossel credited Rand with helping to lead him to his libertarian beliefs.

Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Thomas has spoken of being raised on an intellectual diet of Horatio Alger, Richard Wright, and Rand, but "I tend to be really partial to Ayn Rand," he told Reason magazine in 1987.

Ronald Reagan, conservative hero. Reagan was drawn to Rand's ideas early on in his political career, largely for their defense of capitalism and individualism. However, he admitted that he never read Atlas Shrugged. Still, many of Reagan's advisers, both in California politics and in the White House, were also Randians.

Neil Peart, drummer for the Canadian prog-rock band Rush. An outspoken Randian, Peart acknowledged "the genius of Ayn Rand" in the liner notes to the band's breakthrough 1976 album, 2112.

Angelina Jolie, movie star and Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N. Refugee Agency. Jolie has spoken of being "very into Ayn Rand."

Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve and a member of Rand's inner circle (The Collective) during the 1950s and 1960s. While he was never an orthodox Objectivist, he did agree with many of Rand's free-market principles.

___________________________

This article by Greg Barnhisel is reprinted with permission from the May-June 2007 issue of mental_floss magazine.

Be sure to visit mental_floss' entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!

By now, you've probably seen the new trailer for Iron Man 3. But you ain't seen it the way it's meant to be seen. No, not 3D. Homemade.

Check out Dustin McLean of CineFix's Homemade Iron Man 3 and tell me whether it's the best Iron Man 3 trailer or the best Iron Man 3 trailer EVER:

[YouTube Clip]

After that, watch the side-by-side comparison and behind-the-scene clips.

This is a display of cake art, but not exactly a cake. Redditor UberPrioritizer's wife, a baking and pastry teacher at Johnson & Wales University, made each fruit and vegetable from fondant and gum paste. Because it was made for display, and must last several months, the "cake" underneath is made of styrofoam forms. The title is "Eat A Rainbow Every Day." You can see it at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina. Link

The immune system usually fights the virus, but sometimes, a sneaky virus turn the tables against the host and uses its immune system against itself:

Bacteria often carry repetitive genetic sequences called CRISPRs, which protect them against viruses.

When a bacterium is attacked by a virus, it copies a small piece of the virus's DNA and stores it among the CRISPRs. The bacterium will then be better at fighting off the virus: the bacterium can acquire resistance, just like a human acquiring resistance to a disease.

The CRISPRs are a library of diseases, storing samples of past infections. If the same kind of virus attacks again, the bacterium is ready. Any viral genes that enter the cell are quickly marked for destruction. [...]

But the war isn't over. Viruses are notoriously adaptable. According to Andrew Camilli of Tufts University in Boston and colleagues, ICP1 has managed to turn the CRISPR system to its own advantage.

Camilli discovered ICP1 in 2011, and found it to be common in cholera bacteria in Bangladesh. The surprise came when his team found ICP1 had its own CRISPRs, and genes for the Cas proteins, probably stolen from a bacterium.

Camilli looked at the genetic samples stored in the virus's CRISPRs, and found that two of them were identical to a section of the V. cholerae genome. Better still, these bits of DNA are involved in other aspects of the bacterium's immune response.

The implication is that at some point, the virus must have stolen part of the bacterium's arsenal and re-programmed it to target what was left.

Michael Marshall of NewScientist's Zoologger has the post: Link

Brianna Priddy, a waitress at an Applebee's in Lakewood, Colorado, lost her wallet one night. She began the laborious process of replacing its contents and ensuring that her identity wasn't stolen. Alas, someone used it to write hundreds of dollars in bad checks in Priddy's name.

Fortunately, her driver's license came back to her when she asked a customer who wanted to buy an alcoholic drink to show a photo ID. The patron handed Priddy her own missing driver's license:

"But I didn't say anything. I handed it back to her and said sure I'll be right back with your margarita. [I] went straight to the phone, called the cops," Priddy said.

Priddy acted like nothing was wrong.

"I put on my server smile and tried to take care of them, but I was shaking like crazy," Priddy said.

Lakewood police arrived in minutes. [...]

The woman accused of using Priddy's stolen ID faces felony charges including theft, identity theft, and criminal impersonation.

Link -via MArooned | Photo: 9News

Dog in Black by Bruno "Donnie" Clasca | View more designs by Bruno | Bruno's Behance page

W00t! We've got lots of new Funny T-shirts in the NeatoShop. Check 'em out:

Farting in the Elevator is Wrong on So Many Levels	Lederhosen T-Shirt	Chemical Romance	Jean-Luc, I Am Your Father

Why So Grumpy by Chris Murphy | View more of Chris' designs | Official Website

View more Funny T-Shirts | Science T-Shirts | Artist Designed T-Shirts over at NeatoShop

*Update 3/7/13: This contest is now closed. It was open exclusively to subscribers to our weekly NeatoMail newsletters. The winners, picked with the algorithm from random.org, are:

Alien Facehugger	Live, Laugh, Love. Die Anyway	Red Panda
won by tchotch	won by J.U.Piter	won by passengercat

If you want to get access to subscriber-only contests and giveaways, sign up for NeatoMail here:

In Russia, Yandex Maps is used like Google Maps. Marina Voinova of Perm, Russia, looked up an address and used the "street view" part of Yandex to see where she was going. That's when she saw a picture of her boyfriend standing on the street -with another woman!

- When Sasha came home, I immediately called him to computer and asked him to find that address in the map, – told the girl. – When the image loaded, Sasha’s face changed in color. I looked in his eyes, waiting for explanations.

Alexander did not deny anything and confessed. The young man explained that he cheated on Marina not because of big love [ed: to another girl] but due to his stupidity.

- I was shocked by this confession, – said Marina. – I realized that I did not want to see him again, let alone build relationship with him. At first I regretted searching for that address on Internet, but eventually realized that it was silly to blame the Web for my boyfriend’s unfaithfulness.

Yandex does not blur faces in their street view images unless the person requests it. It's a little too late for Sasha. Link -via Geekologie

Alice and the White Rabbit Salt & Pepper Shakers

Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Are you bored by your kitchen decor? It's never too late to add a little adventure to your table with the Alice and the White Rabbit Salt & Pepper Shakers from the NeatoShop. This fantastical ceramic salt and pepper shaker set features Alice chasing after the White Rabbit. Magnets hold the two shakers together.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Salt & Pepper Shakers and whimsical Alice in Wonderland items. 

Link

Hey, let's go for a swim! The water looks fine and I don't see any pesky snakes. Just don't let your feet touch the bottom of the river. You might disturb this 23-foot anaconda that biologist Daniel De Granville photographed in Brazil's Formoso River.

Link -via TYWKIWDBI

This sounds like a winner! A lot of people can sing a capella with friends, but Korean Yeo Inhyeok invited a few versions of himself to sing Stevie Wonder's I Wish. The result is surprisingly good!

Watch and weep: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Blame It On The Voices

(Video Link)

He's soft and fluffy. So why not use him as a pillow? This cat appreciates his creature comforts, so he lies down for a nap on a nearby rabbit.

-via Daily of the Day

Devin at According to Devin drew a series of cats to illustrate what goes on at the biggest social networking sites on the internet. See more of them at his site. Link -via Laughing Squid

You've probably seen a lot of popped water balloon photography before, but have you seen one so cool that it's got to wear sunglasses? Photographer Scott Dickson explained how he took the photo above over at PetaPixel (it involves a surprising amount of engineering!): Link - via Photography Blogger

Bloomberg Businessweek has an extended account of how Disney made the deal to purchase Lucasfilm and its Star Wars franchise. They spoke to George Lucas about the timeline of the negotiations and his retirement plans, and then, on the fifth page, Lucas let the cat out of the bag.  

Asked whether members of the original Star Wars cast will appear in Episode VII and if he called them before the deal closed to keep them informed, Lucas says, “We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison—or we were pretty much in final stages of negotiation. So I called them to say, ‘Look, this is what’s going on.’ ” He pauses. “Maybe I’m not supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do, but we were negotiating with them.” Then he adds: “I won’t say whether the negotiations were successful or not.”

So when Lucas announced a few years ago that he was finished with Star Wars movies, he wasn't exactly finished with Star Wars movies. Maybe now, with $4 billion, he can afford to retire. Link -via USA Today

PS: A statement from Lucasfilm said:

Even though there are a few reports out there about casting for Episode VII, we are not making any announcements at this time. As Yoda said, "Always in motion is the future."

Legend has it that the Vikings used a navigation device called the sunstone to tell the direction of the sun, even on a cloudy day. The device was dismissed as myth ... until today:

... experiments have shown that a crystal, called an Iceland spar, could detect the sun with an accuracy within a degree – allowing the legendary seafarers to navigate thousands of miles on cloudy days and during short Nordic nights.

Dr Guy Ropars, of the University of Rennes, and colleagues said "a precision of a few degrees could be reached" even when the sun was below the horizon.

An Iceland spar, which is transparent and made of calcite, was found in the wreck of an Elizabethan ship discovered thirty years ago off the coast of Alderney in the Channel Islands after it sank in 1592 just four years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Link (Image: Treasure Mtn Mining/YouTube)

Ah, the vegetable that thinks vast thoughts! With a great big eye stalk! This was the cover of The Salt Lake Tribune on October 13, 1912. They didn't exactly present it as the truth, but as a theory.   

The Giant All-Seeing Eyeball was hoisted high in the Tribune, given supposed life by the very highly capable astronomer W.W. Campbell (1862-1930, with his biography here at the National Academy of Science), who is quoted by the paper as being the source of this preposterous theory.  Campbell was not pleased by this--not at all.  And I can well imagine why.  

Link  -via Boing Boing

This is why I seldom Facebook, avoid Twitter, and quit reddit. Can't get anything done otherwise! (But don't you dare stop reading Neatorama, you hear?) From Brian G.'s excellent Chuck & Beans.

How do you hide from government drones with infrared surveillance cameras? With haute couture, as this stylish burqa with metalized fabric by Adam Harvey shows:

“Fighting drones is not my full-time job, but it could be,” says Harvey, an instructor of physical computing at Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts and the creator of the CV Dazzle project, which seeks to develop makeup and hairstyles that camouflage people from face-recognition cameras and software.

Harvey’s newest medium, metalized fabric, has been around for more than 20 years. It holds in body heat that would burn bright for infrared cameras—a characteristic that could prove attractive to those who do not want unmanned aerial vehicles spying on them.

Scientific America has more: Link

Shakespeare Insult Wallet 

Are you trying desperately to get someone you love stick to their budget? Help curb their spending with the Shakespeare Insult Wallet from the NeatoShop. This devilishly fun wallet spouts 7 different insults and barbs every time thou openst the wallet.

The Shakespeare Insult Wallet is made of lightweight, tear-resistant, and water-resistant Tyvek. There is an on/off option so that the sound effects can be turned off.   

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Wallets, Purses & Coin Bags. 

Link

Nutella, the hazelnut chocolate spread, is quite yummy so no wonder that people love it. But the students at Columbia University may love it a little bit too much.

How much is too much? You know you've got a Nutella nut when a hundred pound of the stuff disappear from undergraduate dining halls EVERY DAY!

James Barron of The New York Times reports on The Great Nutella Heist of 2013:

“People take silverware, cups and plates, and that adds up over the course of a year to a lot of money,” he said. “With Nutella, it added up much more quickly. Where Dining might have to spend $50,000 to replace silverware and cups, they were spending thousands of dollars on Nutella in one week.”

Ms. Dunn “told me it was close to $5,000 in that first week,” he said. As for the amount of Nutella that Columbia students were consuming, or at least loading up on and walking away with, he said, “I was told it was more than 100 pounds per day.”

Link

Jason Welborn mashed up 90's toon Ren & Stimpy with Arthur C. Clarke's sci-fi classic Rendezvous with Rama in this nifty illustration. If you don't like it, we've only got one thing to say to you: YOU SICK LITTLE MONKEY!

See more Nickelodeon/Sci-Fi mash up series over at Draw2D2: Link

(YouTube link)

A cat sees a printed version of the Rotating Snake Illusion and reacts as if its moving. The cat's owner, rasmusab, said the cat did not react to a different illusion on paper, and in fact, lost interest in the snakes after a few exposures. So he began to wonder how other cats react to illusions, and produced a form you can submit to relate your own cat's experience. -via reddit

Glee writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa asked what would happen if you mash up Archie with the undead. Well, you won't have to wonder for long. Zombies will invade Riverdale soon in Afterlife with Archie.

"AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE combines two of my great passions: Archie comics and horror comics,” said Aguirre-Sacasa. “This series came out of conversations with Jon [Goldwater], asking questions like, ‘what if the Archie characters found themselves in a Stephen King novel like The Stand or a Sam Raimi movie like The Evil Dead?’ Could we pull that off, tonally? We’re really going for it. The first arc is called ‘Escape from Riverdale.’ The second arc is called, brace yourself, ‘Betty RIP.’ Of course, all the horror stuff will be balanced by elements that are quintessentially Archie.”

Link

A recently-published study on the history of dogs says that the domestication of wolves was initiated by the wolves, not by people. That makes so much sense, when you boil it down to the basics of who benefits the most, as we see in this comic from Doghouse Diaries. Link -via Tastefully Offensive  

(Image credit: Michael Nika Photography)

You're sitting on a boat in a swimming pool. You have a large anchor on the boat. You drop the anchor into the water, and of course, it sinks immediately. What happens top the water level in the pool?

a. It goes up
b. It goes down.
c. It stays the same.

Continue reading for the correct answer.

The answer is (highlight): b. It goes down. When the anchor is in the boat, its weight is pulling the boat down causing an equivalent of weight in water to be displaced in the pool. Example: If an anchor weighs ten pounds, it displaces ten pounds of water. But when you drop the anchor into the pool, it displaces only an equivalent VOLUME of water, not an equivalent weight. If the anchor is one quart in volume, it will only displace one quart of water, which is less than ten pounds of water. Really.

___________________

This brainteaser was reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Unstoppable Bathroom Reader.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End cost $300 million to produce. Oz the Great and Powerful is said to have cost $325 million. And that doesn't include the cost of marketing, which can be just as much, or even more, than production costs. Of course, the costs are worth it when the movie makes a profit, but that's a gamble. Flavorwire take a closer look at ten movies that cost way more than they should have, considering the finished product. For example, Tangled cost  $260 million.  

This one is likewise puzzling — another Disney production whose cost seems way out of proportion with the product onscreen. Tangled is a nice enough throwback to the classic Disney style, an old-school effort to contrast the Pixar present. So why did it cost more than any of Pixar’s fancy, high-tech efforts? Did Snow White and Cinderella cost that kinda bread? Hand-drawn animation is presumably more expensive, but with this movie’s bloated budget and six-year production schedule, they must’ve been averaging a cell a day, followed by a caviar lunch.

Where did the money go? Who knows! Link  -via Geekosystem

Be careful when you pack a suitcase, because a container full of clothing may be irresistible to your cat! Mervat Ciuti flew from Cairo to London with a large suitcase, but had no idea her persian cat Bisou was in it.

Bisou slipped through security at Cairo unspotted and was stacked into the hold of the plane with hundreds of other bags.

It was only when Mervat's mobile rang while she was in a taxi on the M1 up to Notts – after the six-hour flight landed at Heathrow – that she realised what had happened.

A relative back home in Cairo had realised the cat – who normally never leaves the house – was missing, and frantically called her owner.

Monica, 40, said: "When she realised what had happened she said she was trembling. She thought she would be dead.

But Bisou survived the 3,400 mile trip, despite being zipped in a suitcase in the cargo hold with hundreds of other bags. Unfortunately, after traveling internationally, the cat is in quarantine in England, but should be reunited with Ciuti by summer. Link (with video)  -via Arbroath

Honestly, if you're so oblivious that Stallone takes you down with this hackneyed move, you deserve to lose. Artist Brandon Bird pulls no punches on this issue.

Link

(YouTube link)

Nick Bertke took the Ghan, a three-day train trip across the heart of Australia and recorded the sights and sounds for the latest Pogo mix. It really shouldn't be called a "remix" because this video was made from original footage instead of using an existing movie or music video. -via Viral Viral Videos 

Pickled Wine Bottle Stopper 

Are you looking for a intoxicatingly fun way to preserve your favorite bottle of wine? You need the Pickled Wine Bottle Stopper from the NeatoShop. This deliciously delightful silicone stopper is shaped like a pickle. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Barware & Cocktail items. 

Link