“Not everyone needs to take maternity leave but with heartbreak, everyone needs time off, just like when you get sick,” says CEO Miki Hiradate, of Tokyo-based Hime & Company. The company gives “older” staff (over 29) more time off, under the theory that break-ups are more serious when you’re older.
You can read the rest of the article here. Via Tokyomango.
What do you think, are break-ups harder with age?
(The image is a t-shirt submission currently up for vote at Design by Humans.)
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Some of you might remember the Family Guy Star Wars Style Poster entry that was posted here at Neatorama late last year. Original sketches from this “Family Guy: Blue Harvest” special are now available from foxstudioart.com.
Since traditional cels were not actually created for this special (coloring, etc was done in the computer), these are the closest you’re going to get to hand-drawn artwork.
Prices start at $140, with new art replacing those that get sold.
Link – via The Official Star Wars Blog
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Google Maps joins science fiction lore in this eerie video. -via Digg
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Aboard were commander Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, pilot Michael J. Smith, mission specialist Judith A. Resnik, mission specialist Ronald E. McNair, mission specialist Ellison S. Onizuka, payload specialist Gregory B. Jarvis, and teacher-in-space Sharon Christa McAuliffe. You’ll find more on each crew member at NASA. Link
If you are old enough to remember, tell us where you were when you heard the news that day.
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With all of the primaries going on in the past month, you may have noticed that the presidential candidates are starting to get a little snarky with each other. What you may not know is that mudslinging isn’t exactly a new tactic. And I’m not talking as recent as Nixon and Kennedy… nope, the nasty rumors and talk of mistresses and morals go as far back as George Washington.
In case you’re wondering exactly how down-and-dirty these campaigns got, consider the fact that this is the only election in history where a vice president has run against the president he was currently serving under. You can imagine that things were a little tense in the White House in the months leading up to the election.
Jefferson hired a writer to pen insults rather than dirty his own hands (at least at first). One of his most creative lines said that Adams was a “hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”
Adams’ Federalists carried things even further, asking voters, “Are you prepared to see your dwellings in flames… female chastity violated… children writhing on the pike? GREAT GOD OF COMPASSION AND JUSTICE, SHIELD MY COUNTRY FROM DESTRUCTION.” I bet the Federalists would be so very upset to know that Jefferson was immortalized in 1936 as one of America’s great presidents on Mount Rushmore.
After such a nasty election, Congress passed the Twelfth Amendment, stating that the nominee to get the second-most number of votes would no longer be elected vice president.
Apparently those Adams boys are scrappy fellows. When Andrew Jackson ran against incumbant John Quincy Adams in 1828, it was not pretty. Adams’ previous term had not been a very successful one, but he was prepared to sling a little mud anyway. He and his handlers said Jackson had the personality of a dictator, was too uneducated to be president (they claimed he spelled Europe ‘Urope’), and hurled all sorts of horrible insults at his wife, Rachel. Rachel had been in an abusive marriage with a man who finally divorced her, but divorce was still quite the scandal at the time. The Federalists called her a “dirty black wench”, a “convicted adulteress” and said she was prone to “open and notorious lewdness”.
On their end, Jackson’s people said that Adams had sold his wife’s maid as a concubine to the czar of Russia.
Jackson won pretty handily – 642,553 votes to Adams’ 500,897.
Yep, even Abraham Lincoln was dealt his share of crap. But he was pretty good at dealing it too. Although it’s normal – and expected – for candidates to stump across the country in any little small town that will have them, but in 1860 it was considered a little tacky. Stephen Douglas chose this tactic anyway, but claimed that he was really just taking a leisurely train ride from D.C. to New York to visit his mom. Lincoln and his supporters took note of the fact that it took him over a month to get there and even put out a “Lost Child” handbill that said he “Left Washington, D.C. some time in July, to go home to his mother… who is very anxious about him. Seen in Philadelphia, New York City, Hartford, Conn., and at a clambake in Rhode Island. Answers to the name Little Giant. Talks a great deal, very loud, always about himself.” ‘Little Giant’ was a potshot at Douglas’ height – he was only 5′4″. He was also said to be “about five feet nothing in height and about the same in diameter the other way.”
Douglas took aim at Lincoln, too, saying he was a “horrid-looking wretch, sooty and scoundrelly in aspect, a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse-swapper and the nightman.” Another good one? “Lincoln is the leanest, lankest, most ungainly mass of legs and arms and hatchet face ever strung on a single frame.”
Who knew Grover Cleveland was the Bill Clinton of his time? During his campaign, stories of his lecherousness were plentiful. One was verified, though – Cleveland, while still a bachelor, had fathered a child with a widow named Maria Halpin. He fully supported the child. So really, by today’s standards, it probably wouldn’t be that much of a scandal. No marriages ruined, no paternity tests, no child support issues. Nevertheless, the Republican party, who supported candidate James Blaine, took this and ran with it. They made up the chant, “Ma! Ma! Where’s my pa?” and used it to taunt Cleveland.
Blaine was no innocent, though. He was accused of shady dealings with the railroad, which was confirmed when a letter was found in which Blaine pretty much confirmed that he knew he was involved in corrupt business – he signed the letter, “My regards to Mrs. Fisher. Burn this letter!” Cleveland’s Democrats made up their own chant based on his writings – “Burn this letter! Burn this letter!”
Democrat Al Smith lost pretty badly to Republican Herbert Hoover, largely due to one reason: his religion. At the time of the election, the Holland Tunnel in New York was just being finished up. Republicans told everyone that the Catholic Smith had commissioned a secret tunnel 3,500 miles long, from the Holland Tunnel to the Vatican in Rome, and that the Pope would have say in all presidential matters should Smith be elected. It probably didn’t help matters that Babe Ruth was a staunch Smith supporter. You think it would work in his favor, but the Babe would show up at events wearing only his undershirt with a mug of beer in one hand. If people opposed his viewpoint, Ruth would simply say, “The hell with you,” and be done with them.
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When I brought home a Roboquad robot the other day and started playing with it, our resident guardian K9 was none too pleased. I decided to put Roboquad in “autonomous” mode, set his aggression level to high, and let the battle unfold.
I like the 8-bit videogame style! From Demonbaby -via Viral Video Chart
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LEGO is 50 years old today (precisely at 1:58 pm, actually, when the original patent was filed in Denmark). The plastic toy building brick is everywhere – LEGO has thousands of sets with all sorts of themes, from Star Wars to Harry Potter models. To commemorate the half century mark of the popular toy, Neatorama has compiled a 10 Neatest LEGO Facts and Links:
The LEGO toy empire got started in 1932 when Ole Kirk Christiansen, a Danish carpenter, almost went bankrupt. During a depression, he had lost so much carpentry business that he started making wooden toys and selling them from his workshop. Two years later, he named his company LEGO (from Danish words "leg godt" meaning "play well". Incidentally, lego also means "I put together" in Latin.)
Christiansen’s first product? A wooden toy duck.
Ole Kirk didn’t invent those LEGO bricks. He was inspired by the "Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Brick" patented by British inventor Hilary Fisher Page years earlier. LEGO’s first bricks, called the Automatic Binding Bricks, were released in 1947 and were almost exact copies of the Kiddicraft block.
Many years later, after Page committed suicide over business troubles, LEGO bought all the rights to the Kiddicraft block. (Source: Isodomos)
In 1961, LEGO was awarded its first US patent for "Toy Building Brick." The design calls for a hollow rectangular bricks with studs on top and a round hollow tube on the bottom. This was a marked improvement, as it allows for the precise "tube and stud" coupling. (source: Google Patents)
The first minifigures (or minifigs) were released in 1978 for the Town, Space, and Castle playsets. When they were first created, LEGO decided that their (always happy) faces should have only one color: yellow. Minifigs have no sex or race. Actually, they didn’t have any arms or movable legs either.
In the 1980s, with the arrival of the LEGO Pirates, new facial features (evil/good/happy/grumpy) were released. In 2003, the company released different skin colors for the LEGO Basketball.
Every year, about 19 billion LEGO bricks are produced. That translates to 2.16 million LEGO elements are molded every hour, or 36,000 per minute! The LEGO manufacturing process is so precise that only 18 out of 1 million LEGO bricks produced is considered defective.
The melted ABS is struck at a pressure of 25 tons to 150 tons — depending on the type of brick being made — with the metal molds. The intense force is important to the process, as it ensures that the bricks are accurately shaped.
Oh, and did you know that LEGO manufactures about 306 million tiny rubber tires every year? That’s more than any other tire manufacturers in the world!
Link: The Making of a LEGO Brick, a photo gallery by Joseph Pisani at BusinessWeek
Perhaps it’s the company’s name, spelled in all capital letters, that inspired LEGO lovers to use a multitude of acronyms when they talk about their beloved toy. Here are some examples:
AFOL: Adult Fan of LEGO
BFC: Big Freaking Castle
BURP: Big Ugly Rock Piece
HOG: Hand of God, when you move your minifigs around, this is what they think of your hand
LF and NLF: LEGO Friend and Non-LEGO Friend
LS and NLS: LEGO Spouse and Non-LEGO Spouse (guess which one approves of the LEGO hobby)
MOC: My Own Creation
Consider these amazing statistics, courtesy of LEGO – Thanks Alisa Weinstein!
- There are about 62 LEGO bricks for every one of the world’s 6 billion inhabitants.
- Children around the world spend 5 billion hours a year playing with LEGO bricks.
- More than 400 million people around the world have played with LEGO bricks.
- More than 400 billion LEGO bricks have been produced since 1949. Stacked on top of each other, this is enough to connect the Earth and the Moon ten times over.
- 7 LEGO sets are sold by retailers every second around the world.
- The LEGO bricks sold in one year would circle the world 5 times.
While each LEGO creation is a testament of the builder’s creativity, Nathan Sawaya’s creations have elevated building with LEGO to an artform. The former corporate lawyer quit his job in 2001 to focus on becoming the world’s foremost LEGO artist. Sawaya’s art show The Art of the Brick is currently touring North American museums.
Nathan Sawaya posing with his sculpture titled Gray (2006)
Previously on Neatorama: posts featuring Nathan Sawaya.
Given people’s passion when it comes to the toy, it’s not surprising that there are many world records set with LEGO, for example:
- World’s tallest LEGO tower at 94.3 ft (28.7 m) with 465,000 bricks
- World’s Longest LEGO Construction at 5,179.8 ft (1,578.8 m) with 2.9 million bricks
- World’s Largest LEGO Image at 870.15 ft² (80.84 m²), with 1.2 million bricks
World’s Largest LEGO Image – see the guy in the middle of the 8 ft minifigs? That should give you an idea of how large the image is. Photo: Toy Museum Bellaire
See more LEGO world records at RecordHolders.org
The Last Supper, Photo: Brandan Powell Smith
Let’s end with one of my favorite stories about LEGO: In 2001, Brendan Powell Smith embarked on a project to tell the stories in the Bible using LEGO dioramas. The result was a website called The Brick Testament. Since then, it had grown to have over 3,600 illustrations that retell more than 300 stories.
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Back in 2003, the McDonald’s at East Alton, Illinois had a strangely-worded sign that just begged to be pranked. So the folks at Phone Losers of America did just that:
I don’t want to use any of the ideas that defame the quality of McDonald’s food or falsely advertise their products. My intent is mostly to amuse people, not piss them off. I finally decide to pick Mithrandir_t00’s suggestion of “Our team is endowed to guarantee your satisfaction” but I change his wording slightly to read,
“Our team is well-endowed to guarantee your pleasure!” Even if this is false advertising, I don’t think the employees are going to say, “Hey, that’s not true because our weeners aren’t that big!”
Link – via Miss Cellania
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This guy has modded his Honda Goldwing motorcycle into a mini F15 Fighter Jet! He claims that the creation is street legal – GeekAlerts has a short video clip of the strange jet/bike combo: Link
Too bad there’s no afterburner, like Ron Patrick’s jet-powered Honda Metropolitan scooter we featured previously on Neatorama.
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Snow White n 7 Stormtroopers
Darth Valice in Wonderland
deviantART user *Thumper-001 has a fantastic set of fan art of Star Wars and Disney mash up.The Cheshire Cat in Boba Fett costume is simply marvelous!
Many more excellent pics here: Link – via Super Punch
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That’s Spanish artist Juan Francisco Casas drawing a photorealistic B/W (that’s blue and white, I suppose) art using only a BIC ballpoint pen!
Some examples of his amazing work:
theperfectman (2007)
Windybrighton (2007)
Click#3 (2008)
Link: Casas’ website [in Spanish] | Gallery – via The Daily Dish and Spluch
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Someone tell the idiots at the Westboro Baptist Church that Heath Ledger was an actor playing a role in The Brokeback Mountain. Or maybe they didn’t even care.
Is this for real? Sadly, given the history of condemnation of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people (LGBT) by Fred Phelps (leader of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas), it’s totally believable that they’d do something this low.
- via One Large Prawn
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Photo: Russell Bird
Photographer Russell Bird captured this mysterious structure known as the "sheep circle":
There were strange goings on at the farm today when a flock of sheep made their own version of a crop circle.
About 100 of the woolly creatures formed an orderly ring – baffling the farmer and passers-by.
But after hearing the roar of the boss’s tractor the animals scattered like a group of naughty schoolboys.
Link – via Scribal Terror
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"I have a quantum car. Every time I look at the speedometer I get lost."
– Steven Wright, comedian (b. 1955)
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Photo: Annie Leibovitz
Famous photographer Annie Leibovitz had done a series of stylized photos for Disney’s ad campaign “Year of a Million Dreams” (we covered this back in November 2007). Now, she has more pics, like the Jennifer Lopez as Princess Jasmine and Marc Anthony as Aladdin shown above.
Check out the gallery at Super Punch
Update 1/28/08 – Digital News Agency has the “making of” video: Link – Thanks Debbie Schogger!
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You’re looking at photographs from a new attempt to break the world record for the "The Largest Champagne Fountain" in Antwerp, Belgium:
The 7 metre (22.9 feet) high pyramid will contain more than 43,000 glasses and weigh 8,750 kg (19,290 pounds) to set a new record.
No word when they will finish (or if they had succeeded): Link (Photo: Francois Lenoir/REUTERS)
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Photo: City of Lewiston
The City of Lewiston, Maine, got an unusual sewer problem: its main sewer line is being clogged by a mysterious 50 to 60 foot (15 to 18 m) long doughy blob!
City crews discovered the clog earlier this month after responding to complaints of blocked sewer lines downtown. Jones said crews opened a manhole at the Bates Street intersection and saw the clog – an oozing, white blob that looks like uncooked dough.
"We’ve tried punching through it, but each time we do, it just oozes back over the hole," he said. "It really looks like dough."
Link – via Boing Boing
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To make his hotel stand out from its competitors, Belgrade hotelier Dusan Zabunovic decided to give his hotel a peculiar theme: current and past world leaders!
Zabunovic renovated a property opposite Belgrade’s central train station, with the help of some of the best designers in the country. He named the hotel Mr. President and designed each room around a current or past world leader.
As a member of the Design Hotel chain, Mr. President boasts many luxurious suites. The most luxurious, on the seventh floor, comes complete with a portrait of former communist leader Josip Broz Tito, who ruled
Yugoslavia for more than 35 years. You can enjoy his picture while soaking in your Jacuzzi.In addition to the Bushes, Margaret Thatcher, Fidel Castro and Joseph Stalin, there is also a junior suite named after the infamous Adolf Hitler.
The Hitler or room 501, occupied mainly by German, Croat and Slovenian guests, sees the highest demand, according to Zabunovic.
Predictably, the Hitler room is controversial: Link
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Eighty-one-year-old retiree Leo Hill got a nagging feeling that every roll of TP he’s used since mid-2006 didn’t last as long as they used to.
So, having a lot of time on his hand, he decided to investigate: by counting every sheet of toilet paper in a roll!
Hill figured he had the time, since there wasn’t much else to do but read or stare at the shower curtain. So he counted every sheet of toilet paper as he used it.
It wasn’t for any other reason, he said, than to know if the number of sheets noted on the package matched what was on the roll.
totals on a flattened inner tube from an expended roll, Hill said he kept meticulous track. Each day he’d count the number of sheets he needed — he limited the experiment to his Lakewood home’s basement bathroom because his wife won’t go there — then added it to his previous day’s tally.
By his count, the first roll was short by 15 sheets.
"You couldn’t prove anything from one roll," Hill admits, "so I counted them all."
At the end of the month, Hill said his nine-roll average was 156.75 sheets for the rolls of Angel Soft that promised 198 on the package.
Link (Photo: Joe Amon/The Denver Post)
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In a room of 57 or more people, the probability of two people having the same birthday is 99%.
In a group of 23 randomly chosen people, that probability is 50%. For a full explanation, see Birthday Paradox [wiki]
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Fifteen-year-old Demi-Lee Brennan is lucky to be alive: after a virus destroyed her liver, doctors gave her just 48 hours to live when a donated liver became available.
But not only that: after the transplant, Demi-Lee became the very first person in the world to take on the immune system and blood type of her donor!
With only hours to spare, Demi-Lee had a 10-hour operation and was started on a cocktail of immuno-suppressant drugs, the standard fare for transplant patients to ensure their bodies do not reject the donated organ.
Nine months later, when her condition worsened and she was readmitted, doctors were shocked to find that her blood type had changed. The head of hematology, Julie Curtin, said she was stunned when she realised Demi-Lee was now O-positive, rather than O-negative.
"I was convinced we had made a mistake, so we tested it again and it came up the same. Then we tested her parents and they were both O-negative, so it was confirmed that Demi absolutely had to have been O-negative."
Dr Curtin said Demi-Lee’s blood then began to break down, requiring more medications.
"We then realised it was her own residual cells which were causing the problem and we needed to get rid of them. And that’s when we knew we had to convince the doctors that Demi’s immuno-suppressant drug regime should be stopped, rather than increased."
Link (Photo: Kate Geraghty)
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