Want a credit card that will show off how much money you have to burn? The Qatar National Bank issues one that comes encrusted with real diamonds:

The invitation only QNB Private World Elite MasterCard credit card is an “experience-based service platform” for the bank’s jet-set crowd.

The card has no pre-set spending limit and owners get personal travel advisors, around-the-clock dedicated luxury lifestyle concierge, bespoke personal shopping experiences at various destinations, and invitations to mysterious “insider priceless experiences”.

Link -via Marginal Revolution

(Photo: Steve Jurvetson)

If you're in East London anytime before August 4, 2013, you can climb these walls without fear of falling. It's an optical illusion created by Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich called Dalston House. Here's how it's done.

The "house" is on the ground, with a giant mirror looming over it at an angle. The work was commissioned by the Barbican in London.   

(YouTube link)

See more pictures at Colossal. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy

Previously: More of Erlich's illusion art.

Last year, Leslie James Pickering, a bookstore owner and activist in Buffalo, New York, noticed something unusual in his mail, a confidential note reminding postal employees to copy all of his mail before delivering them.

The note was accidentally slipped into his mail deliveries and Pickering has just stumbled upon a little known postal spying program:

As the world focuses on the high-tech spying of the National Security Agency, the misplaced card offers a rare glimpse inside the seemingly low-tech but prevalent snooping of the United States Postal Service.

Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images.

Ron Nixon of The New York Times reports: Link

(YouTube link)

She may not use a cue, but she certainly understands the point of the game. And she looks good doing it! -via Tastefully Offensive

We've all experienced the discomfort of biting into a sweet cupcake and not finding a greasy industrial food-like product inside. But not if Becky McKay, the Cereal Baker, cooks for us!

You may remember Becky's corn dog brownies and spam and peanut butter cookies. She's back with a recipe for this culinary delight. And what is that garnish in the cupcake on the left? That's chocolate covered pepperoni. Yum!

Link

Got fast reflexes? Think that the classic Atari game Breakout was too easy? Then check this out: BRICK[bricksmash]SMASH by Alan Hazelden of Draknek. It's 16 Breakout games inside a Breakout game.

Hazelden told Evan Narcisse of Kotaku:

Hazelden said that he started it for a game jam with the theme "game within a game." "This was the first idea that came to mind that didn't involve me having to actually implement more than one different game," he told me. You're timed on how quickly you can clear the whole board and the game keeps track of how many balls come into play. Hazelden told me that he's seen clear times of 0:46 and counts as high as 317 balls. That's an insane amount of reflexes.

Kotaku has the video clip, or you can play it over at Draknek: Link

Willy Wocka and the Muppet Factory by Kenny Durkin

Now over here, if you'll follow us, Kenny Durkin has something rather special. These neat shirts are almost as good as Wonka's three-course dinner gum. Printed in the United States - no Oompa Loompas, we promise.

Visit Kenny Durkin over at his official blog, then visit his NeatoShop page for more: Link

The Wocka Wocka-ing Dead	TEETH	Prawn Solo	World of Friendship

View more designs by Kenny Durkin | More Funny T-shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn generous royalties, and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

An article in the Indianapolis Star about interstate bridge heights and semitrailers has an unusual graphic. The "Average housecat shown for scale" appears to be 14' 9" tall! Readers -and the internet- had a good time with that one. However, there is an explanation.

But it's all about the baseline, said the artist, Stephen J. Beard. The bottom line of the bar chart is not zero — it begins at 13’6” — so the cat is only pictured at a normal 1’3’’ in height, not 14’’9’. (Though I’m going to break out a ruler when I get home and confirm this data point with my own feline roommate.)

So the "scale" is actually a housecat sitting on top of a tall 18-wheeler. Glad they've cleared that up. He'd better move before they get to a bridge! Link  -via Buzzfeed

According to tradition, the winning team is supposed to drink beer out of the cup. That probably won't work with a cup made of compressed meat. But the geniuses at Man B Que designed a beer cheese to accompany their magnificent trophy.

Link -via Obvious Winner

(Photo: Man B Que)

Glitter Purse Lip Gloss (sold as a set of 2)

Are you looking for a lip gloss with real purse-onality? You need the Glitter Purse Lip Gloss from the NeatoShop. This delightful lip gloss comes in the shape of a little purse. Glitter Purse Lip Gloss is available in: 

• Silver and Pink
• Silver and Purple 
• and Silver and Turqouise

Buy all 3 set and make it a fabulous set. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Personal Care items. 

Link

Imagine you walk into Disneyland and among the many babies in the many strollers, you happen to see this -a baby in a Jungle Cruise stroller. If you were smart, you'd take a picture just like Twitter user Imaginat1on. Now that's a true Disney fan in the making right there.

Link

Sometime around 1960, Aaron's grandfather purchased an oscilloscope. He passed it down in his family in excellent condition. Lacking any other use for it, Aaron turned the oscilloscope into a clock. You can see build photos at the link.

Link -via Hack A Day

Look at this little cutie -those firecrackers are almost as big as he is! He's celebrating the 130th birthday of the USA, which means this picture was taken in 1906. This is just one of 18 Vintage Photos of People Celebrating Independence Day you'll find at mental_floss. Link

(Image source: Library of Congress)

Warton, Lancashire, England, may be celebrating the Fourth of July with the former colonies, but not this Spitfire Coffee shop in New Orleans, Louisiana, as snapped by redditor BoxcarBartlet. It is sympathizing with Britain for the loss of its American colonies.

On another note, it seems that Mayor McCheese is in the lead over Prince in tips garnered. Which goes to show that you can't beat burgers in America. Not even Prince.

Remember the 100% bacon 'Merica burger Slater's 50/50 released to celebrate the Fourth of July last year? Well, it's back, so any of you bacon-loving Neatoramanauts who happen to be near Southern California this month had better head over to Slater's this month and grab the bacon-tastic treat covered with bacon cheddar cheese, two strips of thick bacon, bacon Island dressing and a sunny side up egg.

Link

Herein lies the Immortal Bard's classic tale of hope, love, courage and villainy. Ian Doescher discovered and published this play, long missing from the Shakespeare corpus--and coming soon to the Globe on Tatooine.

I understand that there are six plays in this series, although the first three in the sequence were probably written by Edward de Vere.

Link -via Blame It on the Voices

This interactive web toy by Rafaël Rozendaal might be appreciated by those who are suffering from the heat wave. You can see that it's raining. You control how hard it rains and wind direction by moving your mouse, from a light summer sprinkle to a dark, scary thunderstorm. Even if you don't have time to play with the rain, there are some nice sound effects you can enjoy as a background for your websurfing. Link -via Metafilter

If you think your dog hates the mail man, just wait until your mail box itself force chokes the mail man and then chops of his hand when he tries to put down the flag on the box. If onlyDeviantArt user SenseiMonkeyboy made these available for sale.

Link

It's not your imagination or faulty memory -large public fireworks displays used to have bigger bursts that went higher in the sky. Over the past few decades, professional pyrotechs have been compelled to make the shells smaller, which correlates with lower altitude. Doug Taylor, the president of Zambelli Fireworks, explains.

“What’s happened is, the size shell that you can shoot in a particular location has decreased,” Taylor explains. Just as shell width correlates to height, so too does height correlate with regulation. Old regulations dictated that you needed 70 feet of area cleared for every inch of shell fired around a launch area. The new industry standard is 100 feet. So when you play that out, practically, a large 12-inch shell needs 1,200 feet (or nearly a quarter of a mile) cleared in every direction to be considered safe.

Taylor tells me that fireworks sites nationwide have been shrinking with both urbanization and suburban sprawl.  

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. The shows make up for the decreased height with a more dense display.

“Rather than one 8-inch shell, I could probably put 12 3-inch shells up for the same price,” Taylor says. “We like that for several reasons. Larger shells are more dangerous because they have more explosive power in them. But the truth is, people in this country especially like density in their fireworks show.”

The drawback is that instead of watching them from your home, you are more likely to have to drive to the fireworks site. Read more about modern fireworks displays at FastCo Design. Link

(Image credit: Flickr use Jeff Golden)

Even though the robbery suspect in Wasilla, Alaska was recognized while in the store, he persisted in attempting to get money from the cashier. The cashier was unimpressed and refused to cooperate:

The clerk asked him to repeat himself because she “wasn’t sure if he was serious because another employee who was inside the store after her shift knew the suspect and had said hello to him.”

The suspect attempted to open the register himself. He failed, so he wandered off to the nearby Mug-Shot Saloon for a drink. Police arrested him later that day, then probably took a real mugshot of him.

Link -via Dave Barry

(Photo: Mudflats)

Accept The Fact That You're Aging Breath Spray 

We heard that you were getting old. Not to worry. Now you can make the bitterness of life more palatable with The Accept The Fact That You're Aging Breath Spray from the NeatoShop. This spearmint-flavored breath spray is less emotionally painful than therapy and much cheaper than plastic surgery. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Personal Care items. 

Link

(YouTube link)

The Star Spangled Banner is an extremely difficult song to sing properly -even more so in front of a crowd. But with hard work and bravery, these talented kids do it better than most pros. -via Daily Picks and Flicks

(Photo: AP/Thanh Nien Newspaper, Kha Hoa)

In 1966, US Army doctor Sam Axelrad amputated the arm of Nguyen Quang Hung, a captured North Vietnamese soldier. Mr. Hung then spent several months recovering and working for the Americans:

"He probably thought we were going to put him in some prisoner-of-war camp," Axelrad said. "Surely he was totally surprised when we just took care of him."

As for the arm, Axelrad said his medic colleagues boiled off the flesh, reconstructed the arm bones and gave them to him. It was hardly common practice, but he said it was a reminder of a good deed performed.

Dr. Axelrad rediscovered the arm among his possessions in 2011. He recently returned to Vietnam to give Mr. Hung his arm back:

Hung was surprised to be reunited with his lost limb, to say the least.

"I can't believe that an American doctor took my infected arm, got rid of the flesh, dried it, took it home and kept it for more than 40 years," he said by telephone last week from his home. "I don't think it's the kind of keepsake that most people would want to own. But I look forward to seeing him again and getting my arm bones back."

Hung served Axelrad and his family lunch, shared memories and reflected on all the time that had passed. Axelrad said he was pleased to learn where and how Hung had been living for so many years, and to meet his children and grandchildren.

"I'm so happy that he was able to make a life for himself," Axelrad said.

Link -via Yababoon

The fourth of July is no holiday in the UK. After all, Americans are celebrating breaking away from the British Empire. But today the stars and stripes flies over the village of Warton, as it does every July 4th. This town is proud of a certain American descendant of a prominent Warton family, the Washingtons.

[George] Washington’s ancestor of seven generations, Lawrence Washington, arrived at Warton around 1300. Lawrence’s great grandson is rumoured to have helped build the clock tower of the village church, St Oswald’s.

Read more about Warton and its American ties at Urban Ghosts. Link

(Image credit: Karl and Ali, cc-sa-3.0)

Inspired by the now famous photo of a T-Rex crashing a wedding, Pixel This Photography decided to have a much less intimidating dinosaur stop by the wedding of one of his clients. If Rex likes weddings, I'll be sure to send him an invite to mine because he is one hell of a party animal.

Link

W00t! It's time for another collaboration with the ever-excellent What Is It? Blog. Can you guess what this odd item is used for?

Place your guess in the comment section. One guess per comment, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like. Please do not post any web link or URL - doing so will void your entry. You have until the answer is revealed on the What Is It? Blog tomorrow.

Two prizes: the first correct guess and the funniest yet wrong one will win a T-Shirt from the NeatoShop.

IMPORTANT: Please write your prize selection alongside your guess, so visit the NeatoShop and take a look around. If you don't write your prize selection, then you don't get the prize. I think you'll like the selection of funny t-shirts and science t-shirts -or even t-shirts of your favorite blogs and websites.

(Video Link)

Forget the fancy laser sensor or rear-view camera. Just put a balloon on your car's trailer hitch. When it pops, stop immediately.

Note: the sound effects unit costs extra.

-via Yababoon