David Neevel (YouTube) 
 
 A cookie-favoring physicist has created what appears to be the world's first Oreo separator. 
 
 David Neevel, an artist and inventor based in Portland, Ore., was commissioned by the popular cookie brand to produce the machine as part of its "Cookies vs. Creme" campaign. 
 
 "My Oreo machine is based entirely on my dislike for creme and my preference for cookie," Neevel said in a short video that could easily be mistaken for a "Portlandia" sketch. 
 
 The OSM, as Neevel calls it, was constructed of scrap aluminum, wood, a hatchet and floss in a Portland garage. 
 
 After the hatchet blade is lowered to split the Oreo, a pair of mechanical arms are dispatched to collect the cookie halves, which are transferred to a router table where the creme is removed. 
 
 The electric-powered contraption took about two weeks to build. "It was a big time commitment," Neevel said. "I had to work some long hours—I didn't see my girlfriend or my dog for hours at a time." 
 
 "Outstanding. I applaud your efforts," one YouTube commenter wrote. "For your next design, how about an automatic sock pair singlifier? 
 
 Three other inventors were commissioned by Oreo to come up with concepts, with the next one slated to be unveiled later this week. 
 
 Watch Neevel's Oreo separator in action: ||||| David Neevel doesn’t like the creme in the middle of Oreos, so he built a machine to remove it. Even though his stance on Oreo creme is horribly, tragically, and completely misguided you have to respect a guy who takes action to get what he wants, or to eliminate what he doesn’t want as the case may be. Neevel is a physicist from Portland who is the type of person who sees a problem and solves it — with a hatchet-wielding robot — because that’s how you freaking get things done. 
 
 A machine that halves Oreos with a hatchet and then removes the creme is admittedly only so useful, but watching Neevel explain the challenges he faced building it is weirdly captivating. He didn’t let things like cold hands, cold cookies, or finding a decent sandwich place near his workshop stop him. David Neevel gets things done. 
 
 Watch him talk about his machine, his distaste for Oreo creme, and his amazing catchphrase “This creme’s no good, get it off the cookies or something,” in this video from Oreo: 
 
 This is only the first of what appears to be a series of videos that show Oreo separating machines, and that’s just wonderful. I’d love to see more of these, but I have to say it will be hard to best Mr. Neevel’s personality and mustache. 
 
 (via YouTube) 
 
 Relevant to your interests ||||| Todd Mills tastes for the first time a Doritos Locos Taco in the Taco Bell test kitchen. (Photo: Tacos Made from Doritos Movement Facebook page) 
 
 The visionary behind the billion-dollar Doritos Locos Tacos idea never made any money on it. 
 
 Instead, Todd Mills shrugged off any attention, simply wanting his "cool idea" to come true, said Mills' wife, Ginger. 
 
 Mills, 41, died on Thanksgiving after battling brain cancer. He's survived by daughters, Tyler, 19, and Lainey, 6. 
 
 When friends learned he had passed away, they took pictures of themselves eating the tacos and posted the images to Facebook, Ginger Mills said. 
 
 "It was a sweet memorial," she said. 
 
 Mike Essmann, a friend of Todd Mills, poses with a Doritos Locos Taco with his wife, Mercedes, and son, Mike, Jr. Essmann posted the photo to Mills' Facebook page after Mills passed away. (Photo: Courtesy of Mike Essmann) 
 
 Mills said her husband often made taco salads using Doritos and frequently said someone should make taco shells out of the cheesy snack. 
 
 In 2009, Mills wrote a letter to Frito-Lay pitching the idea. Their response was, "Thanks, but no thanks," Ginger Mills said. 
 
 After receiving the rejection letter, he vowed to pursue the idea "from the grass-roots level," said longtime friend Jimmy Looney, who served in the Air Force with Mills. 
 
 Mills started the Facebook page "Taco Shells from Doritos Movement" in 2009, encouraging followers to "tell Frito-Lay that we demand nacho cheesy taco shells!" 
 
 On the page, Mills posted photoshopped images of well known figures including Albert Einstein with a cheesy taco shell in a thought bubble, Steve Jobs holding a Macbook with a cheesy taco shell on the screen and Chuck Norris doing a karate kick while holding a cheesy taco shell. The page has more than 4,200 likes. 
 
 (Photo: Taco Shells Made from Doritos Movement Facebook page) 
 
 "He was a master with Photoshop, and he created this movement," Looney said. 
 
 One day, Todd noticed Taco Bell had commented on one of his images. 
 
 "He was really excited," Ginger Mills said. "Taco Bell was paying attention to him. Of course, we called everyone we knew." 
 
 In 2012, Todd Mills received a phone call from Taco Bell. The company was developing the prized creation — calling it the Doritos Locos Tacos — and wanted to fly Todd out to its test kitchen in California. He was among the first people to try the new product. 
 
 In an e-mailed statement, Taco Bell called Mills a "true friend" of the company. "We are honored to have had his support through the Doritos for Taco Shells Movement on Facebook, and we admire his strength and optimism during his recent battle. Our thoughts and sympathies are with Todd's family during this time," according to Taco Bell's statement. 
 
 The experimental combination has paid off for Taco Bell. This year, the company said it exceeded $1 billion in sales of the Doritos Locos Tacos, according to The Huffington Post. 
 
 It's unclear how much influence Mills had on Taco Bell's launch of the Locos Tacos. Although friends, including Looney, had urged Mills to seek compensation for the idea he championed, Todd did not pursue it. 
 
 "Todd being Todd, he never asked for anything," Looney said. "He said, 'I just want my tacos.'" 
 
 Cancer forced Mills to stop working in August as the vice president of media and information technology at the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, Looney said. 
 
 Todd Mills' daughter, Lainey, 6. (Photo: Family photo) 
 
 As he went through two brain surgeries and a lung surgery, Looney set up a website to accept donations to help pay for Mills' medical bills. Mills would never set up such a site himself, Looney said. Looney reached out to Taco Bell's CEO on Twitter, and the company donated $1,000, Looney said. 
 
 Looney described Mills as "a guy with a good idea and a good heart." Mills' funeral was held Dec. 2. Afterward, Looney said, friends went to Taco Bell and had Doritos Locos Tacos in his honor. 
 
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– On the verge of the Oreo's 101st anniversary, physicist David Neevel has created a futuristic machine designed to undo Nabisco's great mistake—it separates and removes the icky creme from the otherwise wonderful Oreo. "Once every several generations, an invention comes along that fundamentally alters the course of human civilization," declares the Christian Science Monitor, which likens Neevel's "Oreo Separator Machine" to Gutenberg's printing press and the steam engine. Neevel stars in a humorously dry video demo (Yahoo News likens it to a Portlandia sketch) in which he shares that he worked on his Rube Goldberg-style machine for "0.04 years"—aka, "two weeks"—during which he faced major struggles, like how to keep the back of his neck warm. "It was a big time commitment," he notes, saying he spent "hours at a time" away from his dog and girlfriend, and that he "had to try to find, like, a good sandwich in this part of [Portland, Ore.] and stuff. There were a lot of sacrifices I guess." But jokes aside, the machine, which employs a hatchet and floss, is pretty nifty, and Geekosystem notes that videos of more Oreo-separating machines may be coming.