Category: Neat-o

The Dark Side of the Moon is the eighth studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released on 1 March 1973. It was an immediate success; it topped the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart for one week and remained in the charts for 741 weeks from 1973 to 1988. With an estimated 50 million copies sold, it is Pink Floyd's most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums worldwide.

Martin Vargic is a 17-year-old artist from Slovakia who specialises in creating intricate maps drawn from modern data and pop culture.

In the case of bananas, green never means "go ahead." You want your bananas perfectly ripe before you eat them, with just the right amount of natural sweetness, a bright yellow color, and a firm (but not too firm) bite. But all too often, bananas turn to mush before you even get a chance to try a bite—or stay green for way too long.

The Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division is very proud to announce the release of more than 20,000 cartographic works as high resolution downloads. We believe these maps have no known US copyright restrictions.* To the extent that some jurisdictions grant NYPL an additional copyright in the digital reproductions of these maps, NYPL is distributing these images under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. The maps can be viewed through the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections page, and downloaded (!), through the Map Warper.

There is a spill-over benefit for thinking skills used in reading and writing. To write legible cursive, fine motor control is needed over the fingers. You have to pay attention and think about what and how you are doing it. You have to practice. Brain imaging studies show that cursive activates areas of the brain that do not participate in keyboarding.

Remember when your brain exploded after your fourth grade math teacher told you “every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square!” It’s kind of like that. Every symphony is an orchestra, but not every orchestra is a symphony. Likewise, every philharmonic is a symphony, but not every symphony is a philharmonic.

Before everybody started calling everyday tips "Life Hacks," they were often called folk remedies, and they usually rhymed. ("An apple a day keeps the doctor away!")

Preparing slides that are both meaningful and visually appealing has gotten a lot easier thanks to technology. Whether it is for your classroom, a departmental talk, or a conference presentation, here are resources to help craft beautiful slides.

Dryer sheets aren't just for freshening your laundry Add a couple of drops of water to one, and you can remove soap scum from your shower doors, walls, and tub. And while you’re at it, stuff one into the cardboard insert of your toilet paper roll. You’ll spin out some freshness every time you use it.

But ordinary people are also starting to take a more sophisticated approach to the content they view online. It’s no longer enough to read the news – now, we want to understand the processes behind it. Fortunately, there are a few relatively effective verification techniques, which do not require specialist knowledge or costly software. Outlined below are six free, simple tools that any curious news reader can use to verify digital media.

When it comes to pitching, whether via documents like one pagers or face to face (or both!), writers tend to freak out very easily. It’s not hard to see why. After all, what’s the “right” way to pitch??

Today marks the 125th birthday of famed British novelist Agatha Christie, a pioneer of detective fiction best-known for creating enigmatic characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple along with suspenseful whodunits like “Murder on the Orient Express” and “The Mousetrap.” But even Christie’s less-publicized accomplishments are impressive. Below, a few highlights that may surprise you.

Those who have switched to the SAE’s approach swear by it, however, some drivers can’t adjust to not using the outside mirrors to see directly behind the car and miss being able to see their own car in the side mirrors. To them we say, “Have fun filling out those accident reports.”

What do cats think about? Here are some funny examples of cat logic… Let us know if you've had similar experiences with your cat or any different examples you liked to share with us, so we can continue to understand the cat… or not! :)

The suave spy was on home turf at the weekend but he certainly has more stamps in his passport than most…

Do you proofread your book after it’s been laid out for print or formatted for e-reading? You should. Proofreading is the last stage of the editorial process and its goal is to catch any errors that the writer, editor, and book designer or formatter have missed.

Most of you have probably spent a considerable amount of time staring at the colors of photos in programs like Photoshop, but how good are your eyes at discerning colors? iGame’s Eye Test is a simple online test that will assess the quality of your color perception through a simple game format.

How to hang a sweater on a hanger and not stretch it out...

During the 1940s and 50s, Hollywood entered a “noir” period, producing riveting films based on hard-boiled fiction. These films were set in dark locations and shot in a black & white aesthetic that fit like a glove. Hardened men wore fedoras and forever smoked cigarettes. Women played the femme fatale role brilliantly. Love was the surest way to death. All of these elements figured into what Roger Ebert calls “the most American film genre” in his short Guide to Film Noir.

Hugh Laurie: “Screenwriting is the most prized of all the cinematic arts. Actually, it isn’t, but it should be.”

Data from 350,000 people in over 100 different studies shows people are getting smarter — and this is why…

As a master of keeping my job after all sorts of absences, explained or otherwise, I've developed several tricks for just this situation. Here then, for your job-keeping pleasure, is a system of battle-tested tips you can use to get back into "work mode" after a long vacation.

With great accomplishment does not always come great fame, a fact to which these ten greats would attest…if anyone would listen.

If you’re a working-age American, then there’s a good chance you’re looking forward to a long weekend, courtesy of Labor Day. But how much do you actually know about the national holiday?

Dmitri Mendeleev might have designed the original periodic table – a graphic representation of all the basic building blocks of the universe – but artist James Harris has done something way cool with that template — the Periodic Table of Storytelling.

Kind of Blue is frequently cited as the greatest jazz album of all time. Stuart Nicholson tells the story of its making and reveals exactly why Kind of Blue is an album that no one forgets listening to for the first time...

The article begins by discussing the sheer number of neurons on synapses that occur in the brain which is enough to make 1500 milky way if each one was a star. It discusses the fatty content of the brain which is 2/3 and it represents through an infographic how the brain functions. Through music we are able to strengthen our brain and it also shows how 5% of the day our subconcious is in control of our brain.

900 pages must be memorized in three weeks. A passing grade on the subsequent test is 85 percent, and most score above a 95 percent. On just one section, a tiny mistake can result in instant failure. And that’s before you ever get in the jet.

The slow cooker (or crock pot) is a wonderful appliance for hands-off cooking, but the gentle, slow heating process can also be used for other things unrelated to food. Such as these ten things.

Many little girls dream of becoming a ballerina, but the life of a dancer is more mentally and physically difficult than the graceful dances let on.

I don’t think I’m the only one who didn’t spend a lot of time reading my sewing machine’s manual before turning the beast on. I just couldn’t wait to start sewing and I figured I’d address each issue as it came up. For the most part that method has worked, but often times I find myself turning to the internet to google search what could be going wrong. Now, the internet can be overwhelming with all of its information, so its natural that I do get side tracked. In being side tracked, I found some pretty awesome sewing “hacks” I thought I’d share with you all!

Drum breaks: Those small patches of space within a song where the singer shuts up, the guitarist backs off, the bass rumbles down, and the percussionist is given a moment or two to shine. Before the rise of sampling, those moments were merely considered artistic flourishes, necessary bridges, or just breathers from the mayhem swirling around the kit. Afterward, they became essential building blocks for some of the greatest music ever recorded. Below is a collection of some of the most widely sampled drum breaks, with just a few of the songs that feature them.

A groundbreaking new study at the University of Haifa has found for the first time that emotions are not only the product of the processing of information by the brain, but that they also directly influence processes of learning and memory in the brain. Dr. Shlomo Wagner of the Sagol Department of Neurobiology at the University of Haifa, who undertook the study, explains: “It turns out that different emotions cause the brain to work differently and on distinct frequencies.”

Starting with the 1988 Morris Worm, this flaw has bitten everyone from Linux to Windows.

Learning a new language comes with incredible side benefits, including enhanced brain performance, cultural knowledge, and career opportunities. People often mistake the shortcomings of language learning with massive time consumption. But language learning doesn’t need to take years. In fact, with the right methodology and strategies, learning a language can take less than 90 days.

You can learn a lot about someone's intentions and emotions from their body language, if you know what to look for. We've compiled some tips in the graphic below to help you better understand what people are really telling you.

The standard open differential in most cars is a brilliant piece of engineering, allowing you to take the tightest turns without fighting your tires or tearing apart your drivetrain. But even if you understand implicitly how a car’s differential works, it’s kind of difficult to explain.

Here are three simple steps Dr. Small recommends for anyone who wants to improve their memory.

Allen Klein had a contract to manage the Beatles. Unfortunately, there were no longer any Beatles to manage.

How can masters like Picasso, Monet, Warhol and Pollock inspire you to be more creative? Come in and find out!

Walk, Don’t Run: A Rockin’ and Rollin’ Memoir is about passion and dreams — and music. That’s why this incredible book comes complete with an incredible soundtrack! When you get the book, you’ll also get the album that The Pacific Ocean featuring Edward James Olmos singin’ and screamin’ on vocals while Steven “Rusty” Johnson pounds away on the drums.

What I'm talking about is fruit that's not quite at the point where it's totally spoiled, but it's not really enjoyable to eat out of hand anymore. The kind of fruit that looks past its prime; sort of wrinkled and worn. There's more life in that produce than you might expect, so step away from the compost bin!

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) “Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay…”

The following seven truths are what I consider the most valuable things you can learn from the past few decades’ best books on brains. They’ll offer you some insight into why you make decisions the way you do, what that potential client is thinking, and why you should worry about your slightly sinister boss.

Toward the end of the VHS-dominated 90s, he was looking for ways to get in on the Digital Versatile Disc, and noted a hole in the market of ambient video. Tapes needed to be rewound and replayed, which made them difficult to blend seamlessly into the background. Discs, on the other hand, could play endlessly, and that's where Denning made his mark.

If you’re on the beach, it winds up in the ocean; in the country, it’s up a tree. Will you, the errant Frisbee-tosser, ever be able to get your disc game into shape?

Whether it's landing your dream job or getting the girl, a basic mathematical principle can help you in almost any situation.

Tatyana Ryzhkova performes Prelude BWV 998 by Johann Sebastian Bach. Guitar is made by Michel Brück.

Given the apparent dangers of eating certain molds, it's important to know what to use, what to toss, and what to cut off and use.