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Back in the 1950s, airports had to find more powerful tractors to tow larger airliners around. The Soviet Union came up with a car for that purpose, a truly remarkable car called the MAZ-541. It was 25.6 feet long and 11.2 feet wide, and was powered by a diesel V12 tank engine. The look of a sedan may have been ramped up to impress international travelers.
The familiar three-box sedan body style of the 541 was likely more a matter of form following function, as it meant the vehicle could attach a tow line much closer to the aircraft than the large tractors it replaced, which helped maneuverability. The sedan body style was also so the second driver could operate the car in reverse. This way, they didn’t have to worry about turning it around. That’s right, there were two drivers, or at least two driving positions.
But, as mentioned in this article on the MAZ-541 featured on Russian Power, the amount of styling that went into the sedan is surprising considering its utilitarian roots and industrial manufacturer. There’s clearly some effort put into the flared body, chrome features and stylish grille.
There were only three such cars put into use. Read more about the MAZ-541, and see more pictures, at Jalopnik.
Jun Yoshizuki of Jun's Kitchen makes American-style sushi with what seems like the entire contents of a grocery store to the beat of a fast, bouncy soundtrack. You don't even need to like sushi to enjoy the efficient moves of his practiced technique. His "studio audience" consists of his curious and appreciative cats Haku and Nagi, who are both well-fed and well-trained. We can assume that Poki is in another room with the door shut. -via Laughing Squid
Clark Gable always seemed bigger than life in his most popular movies. He was the suave, masculine leading man who knew what was he wanted and knew how to get it. Women melted when they saw him. But that image didn't come easily. When he started his career, he had little going for him other than dreams and ambition.
In 1924, a 23-year-old ruffian from small-town Ohio named Billy Gable moved to Hollywood, where he worked as a studio extra and as a garage mechanic while he pursued his dreams of acting. The deck was stacked against Billy’s Hollywood dreams: He was lanky and somewhat effeminate, with big ears and unattractive teeth. His acting résumé consisted mostly of a handful of theatrical productions in Portland, Oregon, where he had also worked as a logger and necktie salesman.
Ten years later, Billy — now the über-masculine Clark Gable — won an Oscar for best actor and was anointed the “King of Hollywood,” a title he would hold for more than three decades. Gable starred in some of Hollywood’s best films, including It Happened One Night, Mutiny on the Bounty and, of course, Gone With the Wind. But stardom itself did not happen one night. It was the result of a lengthy personal and physical transformation, one that took years — and many attempts — to perfect.
Gable didn't do it alone. His image was a project for his first two wives and at team at MGM studios. Read how they molded Clark Gable into a star at Ozy.
(YouTube clip by MasikBon Origami Paper Crafts)
So. What color is that diamond-shaped piece of paper?
Give up? The secret is revealed below:
Go on, whip out that calculator and confirm the mathemagical equation above. From @Pickover.
Image: Erik Johansson
We've featured some of Erik Johansson's surreal photography before on Neatorama, but I just came across this 2010 interview of the Swedish photographer by Matilda Battersby of The Independent, so it's a great excuse to show you another one of his masterpieces.
Find out many, many more excellent surreal photographs over at Erik's website and Instagram.
This one above is called "Full Moon Service" and you can find the Behind the Scenes video clip below:
Image: Dylan Martinez
A bunch of plastic bags filled with water? Tricked ya! Those are actually hollow and solid glass sculptures by Dylan Martinez titled "H20/SiO2." Gorgeous!
(Image:
Monkey Business Image/Shutterstock)
You've experience this before: after you place your order, the cashier smiles at you and turn the touchscreen to face you to reveal a tip option. How much do you tip? Fifteen percent? Twenty? Or - gasp - none at all?
Now, I understand tipping at restaurants after the meal service. In this case, you can decide how much to tip based on how good of a service you received. I also understand putting a buck or two in a tip jar by the cash register.
But there's no mistaking the new trend of tipping ten, fifteen, or even twenty percent of the bill at the register - before you receive any service.
Eun Kyung Kim wrote in this intriguing article over at TODAY:
Today, it’s nearly impossible to avoid deciding whether to add an extra dollar or two onto a bill for products or in businesses people never previously associated with gratuities.
“I don’t call it a guilt trip, but a guilt tip,” said Thomas Farley, an etiquette expert and modern manners coach.
“With that big ‘no tip’ button staring us in the face, and you know two seconds later that screen is going to be spun back around to the person who just waited on you, suddenly we feel we’re being cheap if we don’t give any kind of a tip.”
What do you think of this premature tipping (or "guilt tip" as Farley in the above quote called it)?
Buzzfeed solicited its readers for family secrets and got a ton of stories in return. As you might expect, many of them involve extramarital affairs and children with secret paternity. But some of them could be movie plots.
"My husband's grandmother was a Jewish teenager during WWII and was placed into a concentration camp. During this time, a Nazi guard fell in love with her and would bring her extra food, clothing, etc. He continued to protect her to keep her alive. When the war was over, she came to the US and started a new life. She told this secret to our family just days before she passed away."
"My great-grandmother's brother married a woman who always looked extremely put together – perfect makeup and hair, etc. When she was on her deathbed, she admitted that she was actually black (albeit fairly light-skinned). She 'disguised' herself using makeup and hair relaxers because she couldn't have legally married her white husband as a black woman, and she never felt that their love would be accepted unless she was able to pass. Of course her husband knew, but no one else in the family did. No one was mad when they found out, which might have been the saddest part. The two never had children, and my great-grandma's brother never remarried."
—Mandy Caruso, Facebook
There are also wild stories of bigamy, a kidnapping, and a murder among the family secrets included at a roundup at Buzzfeed. And even more in the comments.
(Unrelated image credit: Newsact11)
In modern pop culture, mermaids are benign and often romantic creatures of the sea who readily find happiness in the company of humans, as in The Little Mermaid, The Shape of Water, and even Aquaman. But in medieval times, sea sirens were deadly as well as sexy. A new TV show, Siren, is a return to the earlier view of mermaids. Its main character, Ryn, surprises humans by not being Ariel.
Although Ryn is more of a mermaid than a siren in form, her ferocity – in particular, her taste for human flesh – finds its roots in the siren legend. In The Odyssey, the Sirens are said to have been surrounded by ‘a great heap of bones of mouldering men, and round the bones the skin is shrivelling’. It is never stated if the Sirens actually eat those men, or if their corpses just become desiccated after long exposure to the hot, Mediterranean sun, but cannibalism is certainly implied here. In particular, in Circe’s prophecy, the Sirens are mentioned side by side with Scylla, another girl-turned-monster who expressively devours human. The sirens’ birdlike body also invites the readers to compare them with Sphinx, who is also known for her cannibalistic taste.
The Medieval thinkers picked up the cue readily enough. Although not all of them necessarily spells out the Sirens’ cannibalistic diet, the Sirens are more and more pictured as femme fatale. In medieval bestiaries, the Sirens are portrayed as deadly seducers who use their seductive songs to lure the sailors to sleep, and then attack them with sharp teeth and tear open their flesh.
The natural origin of the myth is clear: the sea is dangerous, no matter how alluring its creatures are. Read about the medieval notion of mermaids at Medievalists.
Etsy vendor 1Man1Garage designs and makes all kinds of flat-pack kits for a bit of household whimsy, including this lovely birdhouse that resembles a vintage camper trailer. Punch out the pieces and assemble them, and you can decorate it any way you like. You have the option of plain or pre-painted wood, with an optional eight-color paint set. The only thing that could make this cuter is a family of birds inside! -via Boing Boing
If you've ever been a bridesmaid in a large wedding, you know for sure that you don't ever wear the same dress again. What the question refers to is multiple bridesmaids wearing matching dresses to that wedding. Or at least dresses that match in color. And at it stands now, those dresses are traditionally unsuitable for any other occasion and don't look anything like the bride's dress.
It’s easy to imagine that the uniforms the bride-to-be chooses for her bridesmaids are created in order to make herself more dazzling by comparison. That may be true for some brides, but it’s not where the tradition started.
There's a superstitious reason for the tradition of having multiple bridesmaid that look alike, which you can read about at Mental Floss.
When a raccoon invades your swimming pool, you may as well put him to work -as a swimming instructor! La Piscine (The Swimming Lesson) is the latest from Faireset and his magnificent YouTube channel Parole de chat. You may have to watch twice, because unless you're fluent in French Canadian, you'll have to follow the subtitles. See more of Faireset's nonsense in our previous posts. -via Metafilter
Four years after Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 girls from their school in Chibok, Nigeria, half of them have been freed. A few escaped, but most were released in groups over time as the Nigerian government negotiated with their captors. One woman, who had been married before the kidnapping, returned to her husband and farm. The rest were taken in by the American University of Nigeria, an elite private university where they live, eat, and study together, away from the other students.
But security restrictions on the Chibok students are especially tight. They are not allowed to leave campus without an escort. They can’t have visitors without special permission. And though some of the women gave birth during their captivity, their children are not allowed to stay with them at the university. Administrators say that would distract from their studies.
In fact, the young women have rarely seen their families since they were freed from Boko Haram. The longest period they have spent with their parents, siblings and other relatives since their abduction in 2014 was over Christmas break last year, when they went home for a couple of weeks. Other than that, they have been under close supervision by officials and educators.
As soon as they were released from Boko Haram, the women were whisked to Abuja, the capital, where they spent weeks in the government’s custody, questioned for information that could help find their still-missing classmates — and to satisfy officials that they had not grown loyal to Boko Haram.
Security agents warned the young women not to talk about their time with militants, arguing that it might jeopardize the safety of the students still held captive. Forget about the past and move forward, they were told.
The Nigerian government considers the women, now all in their 20s, to be vulnerable not only to targeting by Boko Haram, but by others who would exploit them for financial or political reasons. Read about the former captives and their lives after Boko Haram at The New York Times. The article is accompanied by 84 portraits of the women as they are now. -via Nag on the Lake
(Image credit: Flickr user Michael Fleshman)
