Alan Taylor's The Big Picture blog at Boston Globe has another amazing post: this time, the Brushfire in Victoria, Australia:

The state of Victoria in southern Australia has recently been hit with hundreds of bush fires during a record-breaking heatwave - temperatures well above 38°C (100°F). Unfortunately, these fires have proved to be the deadliest in Australian history, with at least 166 deaths reported so far. The fires mostly appear to have been started by lightning - however a few appear to have been arson, and are under investigation - entire towns being declared crime scenes. Twenty-four fires are still burning, and authorities warn that the death toll will likely rise.

Link

Living in the dry Southern California, where brushfire is an ever-present danger, I truly sympathize with the victims of this deadly fire. I sincerely hope none of you are affected.

Tired of your puny carrot in the produce aisle in your local grocery
store? Tokyobling blog ran across this carrot shown above at a supermarket
in Tokyo.

Apparently, it's a breed called the "Javelot" long carrot (I can imagine where they get the name: what do you get when you cross a javelin with a carrot?) It is bred and sold by Exhibition Seeds: Link

[Image removed per owner's request]

But that's not even close to the world record for longest carrot! Joe Atherton of Mansfield Woodhouse in Nottinghamshire is the Guinness World Record holder of the longest carrot ever recorded: 19 feet and 1.875 inches (5.84 m):

[removed per website owner's request]

The Carrot Museum has more on record-setting carrots: Link [removed per website owner's request]

OK, enough about carrots - how about sausages? Here's the world's longest sausage: a 1,286 ft (392 m) long smoked sausage from Bucharest!

Bucharest attempted a new world record Saturday with a 392-metre (1,286-foot) smoked sausage that took two weeks to prepare and weighs a hefty 150 kilogrammes (330 pounds).

About 20 people worked on the giant wors, commissioned by the city of Bucharest and presented Saturday during local holiday festivities, Realitatea TV television reported.

Two hundred metres longer than the previous record holder from Poland, according to local media, the sausage was to be later grilled and served to residents.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hu5cM86ANCbSEojjA2LGRV_mxgdg

In the Great Upcoming Queue Revolt of 2009, Neatorama reader Shon commented how Neatorama takes a long time to load. This was quite surprising to me, since we spent a lot of time, money, and effort to make Neatorama's front page - long and full of pictures as it is - loads fast. Well, as fast as it could if you're on broadband, that is (sorry, dial-uppers! No amount of optimization will overcome a slow connection).

So, I spent some time last night poking around, and sure enough: Neatorama's front page took its sweet-*ss time of 15 to 20 seconds to load on Internet Explorer 6.0 (the only IE copy I have on my computer). That ain't right - the front page content takes less than 2 to 3 seconds to load on Firefox. I think the difference is how Firefox renders the page as it downloads, versus IE displaying everything only after everything has been downloaded.

A while ago, we've moved calls to slow external ad servers to the end of the Neatorama page. This lets the content be displayed on Firefox browsers even before you see the rest of the page loads. It sure beats staring at a blank page on IE!

So, if you're that 1 in 3 Neatorama readers still using that slow-poke Internet Explorer, it's time to give Firefox a chance! Link

In 1970, consumer electronics maker Sanyo wanted to improve your daily ablutions. It came up with this: the Ultrasonic Bath AKA the Human Washing Machine.

Pink Tentacle has more (including a video clip of the contraption in action): Link

From De Arte Athletica by Paul Hector Mair (c. 1500) at the Bavarian State Library

Just because they wear colorful, puffy pants, it didn't mean that these medieval martial artists weren't deadly. Paul Hector Mair documented the various gruesome weapons used by fighters during medieval times in his manuscript De Arte Athletica.

You can browse the entire manuscript online (it's 600 pages long), but if you're short on time, BibilOdyssey has some choice illustrations: Link

LiveJournal user Monstro-Draw! nicely sums up what activities may go on the bed of a sad, lonely man with a cat. Behold, the Sad Man's Kama Sutra! (Catma Sutra?)

Link - via Accordion Guy

The Perplexikon, a blog dedicated to documenting the ortographic and linguistic phenomenon of intentional misspellings in brands, trademarks and companies, found this doozie of a school: the Kresmont Kiddie Kollege or ... the KKK! Now U know!

Link - via AQFL

This is a surreal and gruesome yet fascinating sight: a massive fire engulfing the newly built 40-story Mandarin Oriental hotel in the CCTV Complex in Beijing. You can watch the top of the building exploding as fire consumes the entire structure.

CNN has an article compiling first-hand reports from its citizen reporters:

The blaze erupted in the final hours of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration as people set off fireworks across the city.

Xinhua reported that Beijing residents were supposed to stop selling and lighting fireworks by midnight. iReporter de Villeneuve said she
suspects many people in the city were trying to use whatever remaining fireworks they had before the deadline.

"We have been seeing fireworks for the past two weeks. I have to say this is quite a surprise," she said.

iReporter Rice said he was watching fireworks nearby when he noticed that fireworks were being set off near the buildings.

"Then we looked closer and saw the flames come from the top of the building," Rice said. "Soon became apparent that the building was on fire."

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]

Why do fries (or chips, as themre Brits call 'em) smell so good? A crack science team from Leeds University spared no expenses to find out the secret:

The research, which was carried out for National Chip Week 2009, was led by Dr Graham Clayton of the Department of Food Science using laboratory analysis as well as human focus groups to pinpoint the chips with the most tempting smell.

Scientists collected the aroma from cooked chips, then separated the different compounds for analysis by Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry - a technique used to separate foods into their base elements.

Those that could be detected by the human nose were sniffed, and the type and strength of smell recorded. The findings show that those chips that are cooked twice have more complex aromas comprising bitter cocoa, butterscotch, cheese, earthy potatoes, onions, and flowers

Dr Graham Clayton said: "Whether oven-cooked or fried, the humble chip doesn't smell of just chips – the aroma is much more complex and probably explains why chips are everyone's favourite.

Link

Now, back to that pesky cure for cancer research!

Did you just sell your car? If the dealership you sold your car to goes under because of the economic crisis, you may find that you're still on the hook for that car loan:

The national wave of auto dealership closures has come crashing down on thousands of people who are on the hook for used-car loans that dealers were supposed to absolve.

When a car buyer still owes money on a vehicle he is trading in, the dealer promises to pay off the outstanding loan, then resells the vehicle. But as more dealers go out of business, some are sticking consumers with the bill. Lenders can then go after the previous owner who thought the debt was paid, or repossess the car from the new owner who assumed it came with clear title.

"It's devastating for people when it happens because they have two car payments and they can't afford them," said Rosemary Shahan, president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, a Sacramento-based nonprofit that lobbies on behalf of vehicle owners. "Their credit is destroyed for no fault of their own because the dealer defaulted."

Link

Sci-fi author and journalist Charles Platt (he's an editor of our pal Make magazine) decided that he's going to find out once and for all whether Walmart is evil or good ... so he applied for a job there!

Here's why he thinks that despite its bad reputation, Walmart is actually a good company to work for:

A week later, I found myself in an elite group of 10 successful applicants convening for two (paid) days of training in the same claustrophobic, windowless room. As we introduced ourselves, I discovered that more than half had already worked at other Wal-Marts. Having relocated to this area, they were eager for more of the same.

Why? Gradually the answer became clear. Imagine that you are young and relatively unskilled, lacking academic qualifications. Which would you prefer: standing behind the register at a local gas station, or doing the same thing in the most aggressively successful retailer in the world, where ruthless expansion is a way of life, creating a constant demand for people to fill low-level managerial positions? A future at Wal-Mart may sound a less-than-stellar prospect, but it's a whole lot
better than no future at all.

In addition, despite its huge size, the corporation turned out to have an eerie resemblance to a Silicon Valley startup. There was the same gung-ho spirit, same lack of dogma, same lax dress code, same informality - and same interest in owning a piece of the company. All of my coworkers accepted the offer to buy Wal-Mart stock by setting aside $2 of every paycheck.

Read the rest of what Charles wrote for The New York Post: Link

Biggify: Link

Love, love, love this "cat by the numbers" ad, illustrated by Guillermo Valencia for the pet food manufacturer Whiskas. I think I've just spotted my cat doing #10!

Circuit City, Linens 'n Things, and Levitz are all victims of the economic crisis - and the question in everybody's mind is: who's next?

Yahoo! Finance has a somber article about 15 companies that are in such
precarious financial conditions that they might not survive 2009. For example:

Sbarro. (Privately owned; about 5,500 employees). It's not the pizza that's the problem. Many of this chain's 1,100 storefronts are in malls, which is a double whammy: Traffic is down, since consumers have put away their wallets. Sbarro can't really boost revenue by adding a breakfast or late-night menu, like other chains have done. And competitors like Domino's and Pizza Hut have less debt and stronger cash flow, which could intensify pressure on Sbarro as key debt payments come due in 2009.

Krispy Kreme. (KKD; about 4,000 employees; stock down 50%). The donuts might be good, but Krispy Kreme overestimated Americans' appetite - and that's saying something. This chain overexpanded during the donut heyday of the 1990s - taking on a lot of debt - and now requires high volumes to meet expenses and interest payments. The company has cut costs and closed underperforming stores, but still hasn't earned an operating profit in three years. And now that consumers are cutting back on everything, such improvements may fail to offset top-line declines, leading Krispy Kreme to seek some kind of relief from lenders over the next year.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/15-Companies-That-Might-Not-usnews-14279875.html

When Go!Animate emailed me about letting Star Trek fans create their own space adventures using officially licensed images of Star Trek characters, I was intrigued. Now, I've never done any animation in my life (unless you count making flip books in elementary school), so I didn't know quite what to expect.

Even without any creative skill and after only watching their demo video once, I was able to make my first animation, the short clip above in about twenty minutes (kudos to the Go!Animate creators, their point-and-click online animation tool is quite easy to use!).

Best of all, you too can make your own Star Trek animation - and when you do, please let us know the URL in the comment!