We've talked about how people have increasingly tried their hands at becoming real life superheroes, but have you ever wondered whether or not that's actually legal? While the rules will vary based on where you live, San Diego criminal lawyer Peter M. Liss says it's actually totally legal to do in California, as long as you only use the minimal amount of force neccessary to make a citizen's arrest:

If you behaved like most superheroes from the Golden Age of comics and merely subdued the criminals enough to bring them to the police station, you’d be acting within the law. This doesn’t mean you couldn’t use weapons, even a gun, it just means that you could only use them when appropriate -for example, if the criminal started shooting at you. At that point, even if you were arrested for your actions, your San Diego criminal defense lawyer would be able to explain that you were attempting to perform a citizen’s arrest and then had to use a weapon in self defense.

Of course, you have to use weapons legal in the state and you can't torture wrong-doers like many of the more violent heroes in seen modern comics.

Link Image Via Brett Jordan [Flickr]

You will study. Doing otherwise is not an option. If necessary, we can install a lock on the outside of the door. This South Korean invention prevents any distractions.

Scoff if you will, but South Korea didn't become an industrial heavyweight by slacking off.

Link | Photos: NewTGV

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Daniel Loxton is a writer at Skeptic magazine. Donald R. Prothero is a paleontologist. They got together and wrote the new book Abominable Science! Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids, which may be a disappointment for people who buy it for the title alone. National Geographic News has an interview with both authors. A sample:

All the cryptids that you discuss in the book – Bigfoot, the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, Mokele Mbembe – are very similar to things that exist or existed in the past: bears, primates, plesiosaurs, sauropods. Why the similarity?

DL: In some cases I think it's because they are the same. Bears are often associated with ogres or wildmen in folklore because they're pretty humanlike. Once that folklore is underway, you have the opportunity for people to make these misidentification errors where they see a bear and think it might be a bigfoot.

DP: These animals look like something familiar to us because the myths grow around whatever we've already just seen. Daniel pointed out in the book that the Mokele Mbembe myth emerged right about the time that large sauropod skeletons were first mounted in New York City and illustrated by people like Charles R. Knight. Then lo and behold, someone starts reporting one in the Congo, where it doesn't have any history prior to that.

The authors also discuss the phrase "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" at NatGeo News. Link

(Image credit: AP)

What could be a better Halloween fashion accessory than a ring featuring the face of horror king Vincent Price? No, really. I can't think of anything that would be better this Halloween than this ring by artist Paul Komoda.

Link Via Make

British at Heart by Tom Trager

How many British icons do you recognize in Tom Trager's neat British At Heart design? Let me welcome Tom Trager to the NeatoShop! Please visit him over on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr then check out his T-shirts over at his NeatoShop page.

Sherlock Quotes	The Making of a Heisenberg	Time-y Wimey	Moriarty Quotes

View more designs by Tom Trager | More Funny T-shirts | New 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!

Matt Ferguson (previously at Neatorama) creates minimalist posters that give you something extra to think about. His new work illustrating the 2015 Batman vs. Superman film, which doesn't yet have a real title, is a real beauty. Link

If you want to make sure that objects stay in your cabinets, then Dutch designer Dewi van de Klomp has a method. Her cupboards and shelves are made entirely of foam rubber, thus permitting large objects to fit snugly inside. You can see more photos at the link.

Link | Studio Website

Portable barriers designed to be used during nuclear or biological incidents were deployed to separate exiting football fans in Devon, UK, after a match between Plymouth Argyle and Bristol Rovers.  

A spokesman from Devon and Cornwall Police said it was the first time the force had used them at a game.

He said the barriers, which are metal and about 15ft (4.5m) high and 65ft (20m) long, would help them clear fans from the area outside Home Park stadium.

After the match, Acting Supt Brendan Brookshaw, said: "Everything went according to plan with a really good crowd. Just two people were arrested.

"We need to evaluate it fully, but my initial reaction was the barriers were very successful. There was no violence and no disorder in the area where we usually get problems."

The story does not mention which team won. Using the barriers in this manner seems like a good idea, to make use of expensive equipment designed for events that might never happen in order to solve everyday problems. Link -via Arbroath

Photo: PH2 Leland Comer/WIkimedia

How big is the MV Blue Marlin, a semi-submersible heavy lift ship? Why, it's big enough to transport drilling rigs and even other big ships on its deck.

In the 2000 photo above, the Blue Marlin was hired to move the destroyer USS Cole back to the United States after the warship was damaged by Al-Qaeda bomb in Yemen.

Photo: Hans Elbers/Flickr - more at Elbers' website

Well, carrying one ship is impressive - but what about carrying 18 ships? Here the Blue Marlin transported 18 riverboats and a few large pontoons from China to the Netherlands.

A ship that carries a ship (or ships)? Now that's a big ass ship, but the Blue Marlin is actually not the biggest heavy lift ship in the world. That title belongs to Dockwise Vanguard (the company also owns the Blue Marlin), which has 70% larger deck-size than the Blue Marlin.

More about the Blue Marlin over at Wikipedia and Dark Roasted Blend - Thanks Avi!

Previously on Neatorama: Blue Marlin: A Ship That Carries Other Ships and Weird World Records

Melting Pumpkins

Oh, Halloween time. How it is filled with candy, adorable trick-or-treaters, and of course gnats swarming around partially liquefied pumpkins. We know how those squishy and gooey decomposing jack-o-lanterns just make your heart skip a beat. 

Now you can celebrate your favorite part of the Halloween holiday season with you very own Melting Pumpkin from the NeatoShop. Sculpt your pumpkin, decorate him, and watch him melt. He can be used over and over again. Sorry, gnats not included. 

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

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Cal Worthington was a car dealer in California who became a television icon with his quirky TV ads featuring his dog, Spot. The kicker was that "Spot" was never a dog, but a different animal for each ad. Worthington played himself in various movies and TV shows, gaining nationwide fame. Worthington died at his home Sunday. He was 92. Link

See more Cal Worthington ads at the website My Dog Spot. Link

-via Metafiler

We taste like chicken--or so I've heard. Carolyn Hiler has a gift for making ordinary statements sound creepy.

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If you've always wanted to learn more about animals but don't actually like reading, then you'll love this great series of illustrations by A. Stiffler and K. Copeland of ChaosLife. With any luck, they'll add more images to this small 6 part series called Nature Is Magic.

Link Via Incredible Things

(Photo: Peter Rivera)

This lovely, tranquil scene is in Watkins Glen State Park in Upstate New York. Glen Creek cuts 300 feet through the rock, forming a deep gorge with waterfalls and pools. Stone walkways and bridges built in the 1930s provide access to travellers.

Link-via Twisted Sifter

In 1829, the government established a colony on 300 acres of woodland on Staten Island in New York. The poor, the disabled, and the mentally ill were taken there to raise crops and earn their keep -which they did, until the population aged and it became an old folks home. It was only closed in 1975. That's where the history of the site takes a more sinister turn.

Crime had been present on and around the grounds since the 1920s, when a seven-year-old boy disappeared from the woods after being seen walking with an elderly man. The nearby Willowbrook State School had a troubled history for much of its life as an institution for the developmentally disabled. A famous 1972 exposé revealed the children at Willowbrook lying naked on the floor, smeared in their own feces, with one attendant for every 50 kids. And then, in the 70s and 80s, children started disappearing.

Many of them disabled, local kids would disappear from family homes, most never to be found again. Jennifer Schweiger, a 12-year-old with Down’s syndrome, disappeared on July 9, 1987, during what was intended as a short walk, to be found 35 days later in a shallow grave on the grounds of the Farm Colony. Andre Rand, once an orderly of the colony, was blamed for the series of murders. It was rumored he lived in the tunnels under the decaying hospital, and his campsites were found on the grounds of the property.

But that's not all. The buildings and grounds are the site of urban legends of ghosts, criminals, and satan worshipers. It's also a party place. Legally off-limits, the site is accessible and popular for drug users, graffiti artists, urban explorers, and paintball enthusiasts. Add to that the disintegration of the neglected structures and the encroaching forest, and the New York City Farm Colony is now a site to see, which you can at Atlas Obscura. Link

(Image credit: Hannah Frishberg)

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Give this dog a contract! Not only did he score a goal, but he also demonstrated excellent teamwork when coordination among players was essential.

-via Blame It on the Voices

In the first of a five-part series, Reuters looks at how some people who adopt a child and then change their minds can go on the internet to find new homes for them, a procedure called "private re-homing." The process is run without oversight, and things can go very wrong. We are introduced to Quita, who was adopted from Liberia as a teenager. Two years later, her parents gave up on the difficult and sometimes-violent daughter, and handed custody of her over to a couple they found through the internet.

Giving away a child in America can be surprisingly easy. Legal adoptions must be handled through the courts, and prospective parents must be vetted. But there are ways around such oversight. Children can be sent to new families quickly through a basic "power of attorney" document – a notarized statement declaring the child to be in the care of another adult.

In many cases, this flexibility is good for the child. It allows parents experiencing hard times to send their kids to stay with a trusted relative, for instance. But with the rise of the Internet, parents are increasingly able to find complete strangers willing to take in unwanted children. By obtaining a power of attorney, the new guardians are able to enroll a child in school or secure government benefits – actions that can effectively mask changes of custody that take place illegally outside the purview of child welfare authorities.

A few days after the handover, Quita's new family was nowhere to be found. Quita's story hints at poor preparation and oversight in the initial adoption, but the series focuses on what happens afterward, which also involves poor oversight, plus lax law enforcement and the desperation of unprepared parents with nowhere else to turn. Part two in the series is also available, and is even more disturbing. Link

Instructables member blogsdo built a Star Warslandspeeder for his son's sixth birthday. The chassis is a sturdy pedal car, so the repulsorlifts are just decorative. But on Tatooine, you're better off with simple machinery that can be easily repaired.

Link

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PBS Digital Studios shows us how stop-motion animation is done. It's a lot of work taking 24 photographs for every second of video! Animators also talk about the philosophy and history of stop-motion animation, and along the way you'll see plenty of clips from videos you've seen and loved. -via mental_floss

Over at Le Blog de Gille-Monte-Ruici, you can find dozens of cute robots made of scrap metal and old appliances. Now they're useful again, mostly as lamps.

Link (Translation) -via Recyclart

Bone Pen (sold individually)

Make no bones about it, Halloween is on the way. Are you looking for a bare bones pen to get you into the holiday spirit? You need the Bone Pen from the NeatoShop. This bone chilling pen is available in: 

• Femur
• Finger
• Spine
• Tibia and Fibula

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Office & Desk items. 

Link

The views from China's mountain Hua Shan are amazing. On the downside, getting the most out of that view means climbing along the cliffside planks that make up the park's "path."

See those boards with metal pieces jabbed into them? Yeah, those are the path. And that chain? That's the handrail. If you have vertigo or bad balance, you're probably best off just enjoying the view through the great pictures collected by Twisted Sifter.

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Do you ever have one of those days where it seems like your body has a mind of its own -and it has a grudge against you? Yoshi has that problem. Those darn feet! -via Tastefully Offensive

A 25-year-old man who has been reported missing by his family surprised his mom when he showed up at home, 11 days later after walking some 870 miles home, as reported by Rocket News 24.

The man, who was attending a playing card convention in the city of Kitakyushu, Japan, claimed that he missed his return flight to his hometown of Sendai. When he was looking for an Internet cafe, he was robbed of his phone and wallet.

Luckily, the man had hidden 2,000 yen (US$20) in his shoe. Now, you and I would use this money to call home, but not this man! He decided to buy bread and water and set off to walk home instead.

Eleven days and 870 miles later, the deeply tanned man arrived at his home to find his distraught mother, who said, "I was shocked and thought I was seeing a ghost when he arrived. I'm just thrilled that he is back and I'm very sorry to everyone who was worried about him."

When asked why he didn't call the police, the man replied, "I never wanted to make a fuss. I'm sorry to everyone I inconvenienced."

Now, naturally, a lot of people are skeptical (you can't cover 870 miles completely on foot in 11 days - not even the world's top ultra-marathon runners could do that - so there's plenty of speculation that there's a lot more to the story), but don't let that get in the way of the important thing about this story: the man reported that the trip wasn't a complete disaster. He was able to find a rare card to add to his collection, which the muggers didn't steal.

Walking 870 miles for that rare card? Totally worth it for this hardcore fan!

Napa has wine tours, Scotland has single malt whiskies tours, but Jamaica? It has ganja tours. That's right - according to David McFadden of the AP's The Big Story, Jamaican "farmers" have added tourism to the pot trade:

The tours pass through places like Nine Mile, the tiny hometown of reggae legend, and famous pot-lover, Bob Marley. Here, in Jamaica's verdant central mountains, dreadlocked men escort curious visitors to a farm where deep-green marijuana plants grow out of the reddish soil. Similar tours are offered just outside the western resort town of Negril, where a marijuana mystique has drawn weed-smoking vacationers for decades.

"This one here is the original sinsemilla, Bob Marley's favorite. And this one here is the chocolate skunk. It's special for the ladies," a pot farmer nicknamed "Breezy" told a reporter as he showed off several varieties on his plot one recent morning.

Read more over at AP's The Big Story.

Robby made six-sided dice featuring the cutie marks and colors of twelve ponies.

Back row, from left to right: Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.

Front row, from left to right: Celestia, (I don't know), Bon Bon, Lyra, Derpy and Luna.

That's right. I can't identify a cutie mark on sight. And, yes, it's embarrassing.

Link

The ocean is a dark and terrifying place, particularly so back when no one knew what was down there. But the technology that enables air-breathing humans to explore the depths is several hundred years old. io9 shows us the diving suits, diving bells, and underwater machines as they were developed over time. They resembled medieval armor, spacesuits, and robots -all at the same time! Link -via Digg

Pasta Mondrian by Chay Hawes

Who says that pasta can't be art? Chay Hawes sure proves naysayers wrong with this clever Pasta Mondrian design! Please let us welcome Chay Hawes (AKA Chayground) to the NeatoShop.

Check out Chay's official website, Facebook, and Twitter then visit his NeatoShop page for more neat tees!

Through the Microscope (Blue)	Hair Mail	Curie-osity	Mr. Meds - Reservoir Drugs

View more designs by Chay Hawes | More Funny T-shirts | New 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!

Eggs, onions, canadian bacon, cheddar cheese and potatoes? Sounds like a good breakfast to me. Oh wait, it's on pizza? Now that's a great breakfast!

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People of my generation learned long-distance communication in two forms: talking on the phone and writing a letter. Later, we learned to type up business letters, and when email came about, it was considered just another way to write a personal or business letter. But those who grew up with email, instant messaging, and texting look at those things differently, with email now being the most formal means of communication. And that can be stressful, as Domics explains in this video. -via Viral Viral Videos