(Photo: Deean Vivier/Beedd)

South African artists Andre Prinsloo and Ruhan Janse van Vuuren erected a 9-meter tall monumental sculpture of Nelson Mandela in front of the Union Buildings--the buildings that house South Africa's national government in Pretoria.

Observers noticed that there appeared to be an object in Mandela's right ear. Upon closer examination, they found a bronze hare!

The artists confessed to putting it there. They explained that they were forbidden to add their signatures to the statue, so they placed the hare to serve that function.

They were working under a tough deadline and had to complete their work quickly, so they chose a hare. It's a pun: haas, the Afrikaans word for hare, also means "haste."

-via Nerdcore

CORRECTION 1/21/13: I got the translation wrong. "Haas" means hare, not rabbit. Thanks, Barking Bud, for the correction.

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Jalopnik has a great discussion post up about engines, particularly car engines, with an odd number of cylinders. There are some real gems in the comments, such as this Lanz Bulldog tractor. It's a 1-cylinder engine, which is not that uncommon. Many old motorcycle designs, such as those of Royal Enfield, have only one cylinder.

But the Lanz Bulldog's two-stroke thumper engine has a displacement of 10.3 liters! Look at it shake in the above video. Also note that the steering wheel is used as a starter crank. This simple, rugged tractor design dominated the German market before World War II. John Deere bought the company in 1953.

Bonus Item: A five-cylinder rotary car engine that spins on a vertical axis.

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This is the only 1906 Adams-Farwell in existence. It has an air-cooled 4-stroke rotary engine, so the crankshaft remains stable while the entire crankcase spins.

According to third-hand news reports, a company in China offered a special bonus to employees who performed exceptionally well: brand-new coffins!

It may be a pun in Chinese. The word for coffin in that language is a homonym for "wealthy official," so the coffins may be trophies rather than a practical gifts. The president of the company allegedly suggested that employees donate their coffins to the poor if they elect not to use them. 

*Hrumph* Alex has never offered me a coffin.

-via Rocket News 24

Olivia Mears is an artist known for her inventive costumes, such as her dress inspired by the website Imgur. You may also remember that Mears once went to Taco Bell dressed as the Disney princess Belle. Now she's taken her love for that restaurant even further.

The dress pictured above was her entry for a contest held by Taco Bell. It's made of 130 taco wrappers and 12 sauce packets from that restaurant. It's lovely! May I suggest accessorizing it with a hat that looks like a bottle of Pepto-Bismol?

(Photos: Joshua Roberts)

In internet speak, a "banhammer" refers to the power of a website administrator to ban a user from posting on or even accessing that website. Neatorama's banhammer is rarely used because Neatoramanauts are, generally speaking, polite, kind and (let's not be overly modest) good-looking.

Reddit, though, sometimes has a few difficulties with trolls. So the site commissioned the creation of two actual, physical banhammers--one each for the New York and San Francisco offices. They gave the job to Brian Timmons, a woodworker in Texas who had posted some of his work on their /r/woodworking forum.

They are a matching pair made of wood, leather and copper studs. That's not a metal head. So, mods, you'll want to be careful when bringing it down on a wayward redditor.

-via reddit

(Photos: Ifeng)

Why is the Buddha naked? Why are there two of them? Why are they climbing a building? We have no idea. Eric Jou, Kotaku's correspondent in Beijing, reports that these two sculptures are a mysterious art installation in Jinan, Shandong province.

What do they mean?

(Photo: Tess Watson)

Contrary to the perceptions of many tourists, haggis is not a wild animal. Haggis is the heart, liver and lungs of a sheep ground up, then boiled inside the sheep's stomach. It's a delicacy from Scotland enjoyed throughout the world by all right-thinking people and even people who aren't of Scottish descent.

Pictured above is a fairly standard haggis. Let's look at some of the more unusual varieties.

(Photo: Harrods)

1. Haggis Ice Cream. Haggis is so good that you may be tempted to save it for dessert. Now you can have both haggis and a traditional dessert at the same time. Morelli's, an ice cream shop in Harrods, a department store in London, offers haggis-flavored ice cream.

(Photo: Thinking Chocolate)

2. Haggis-Spiced Chocolate Truffles. Nadia Ellingham, the owner of Thinking Chocolate in Edinburgh, made chocolate truffles flavored with the spices usually included in haggis, such as nutmeg, black pepper and mace. Sadly, there is no actual mutton in these treats.

(Photo: The Scottish Grocer)

3. Haggis Potato Chips. Mackie's of Scotland produces potato chips (or crisps) that taste like haggis and black pepper. Yummy!

(Photo: Good Food Channel)

4. Haggis Scotch Eggs.

We've previously seen a radio controlled Enterprise submarine and airplane (both the 1701-A). Although I can't speak for the world under the sea, the United Federation of Planets no longer rules the sky. Now the Klingons have taken to the air, thanks to this battlecruiser built by SG-Ideas. Today is a good day to fly.

That company has also produced RC aircraft built to resemble ships from Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Tron and Star Wars.

(Video Link)

-via Technabob

We’ve seen off-roading wheelchairs before, but the Ziesel off-road vehicle appears to be even more extraordinary. Although this $30,000 wheelchair by the Austrian company Mattro won’t have any problems navigating city streets, it’s through terrain that would challenge walking people that it really shines.

The Ziesel is a 460-pound tracked vehicle that can run up to 4-5 hours on battery and reach speeds of 22 miles per hour. It’s controlled through one joystick, which would probably be helpful to people with control over only one arm.

(Video Link)

-via Toxel

There was oleic acid in my breakfast! Should I rush to the hospital? 

Probably not. Graphic designer and chemistry teacher James Kennedy warns against what he calls "chemophobia"--the fear of harmless if not beneficial chemicals. A lot of the ingredients in completely natural, healthy foods sound frightening.

Kennedy created ingredient lists for several other foods, including passion fruit, blueberries and chicken eggs. You can view them here.

-via Marginal Revolution

(Photo: Torpe)

A flysch is a sedimentary rock formation consisting of mostly sandstones and marls near the sea and adjacent to mountains. There’s a particularly lovely one near the town of Zumaia on the northern coast of Spain.

It was formed over the past 100 million years. The sea has eroded the softer layers (clay) slower than it has the harder layers (sandstone) leaving deep ridges in the earth from the cliffs down to the water. It’s as if Slartibartfast from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy had dragged a giant comb through the land.

-via The Presurfer

(Photo: Oier Araolaza)

(Photo: Gari Araolaza)

(Photo: Gari Araolaza)

If you decide not to have children, then there's a good chance that you'll have more time and money and, consequently, more beer. Just note that if you get a dog as an alternative, then you'll still have to clean up poop and other messes. Lunarbaboon left that part out.

(Video Link)

It began as an illegal campfire. Then it got out of control and burned 1,863 acres of land near Glendora, California. Firefighters think that they may be able to contain the Colby Fire today, but their effort is requiring a lot of work from firefighting resources throughout the Los Angeles area.

We've previously seen a firefighting helicopter scooping water out of a swimming pool in Portugal. In the above video, 2 firefighting fixed-wing aircraft are doing similar work in California. Watch them land in the reservoir behind the Santa Fe Dam to gather up water to dump on the fire.

-via Jalopnik

Brussels

New York City

Paris

Shanghai

Seattle

Maja Wronska, an architecture student Poland, paints striking watercolor images of cities around the world. I especially like the depiction of Brussels, which shows a nice contrast between sharp forms at the top with vague ones at the bottom offset by the bright red umbrellas.

In an interview about her work, Wronska described how her architectural studies inspired her art:

My drawings are strictly connected with the architecture so, for sure, architecture is my inspiration. I started to draw ‘seriously’ during the drawing course on my studies. It was the way I spent my weekends and evenings at high school. When I started to study I gave drawing a miss. Then I realized that I had missed it very much. 

You can view more of her work here.

While wandering through the ruins of a city destroyed during the Mushroom War, Simon Petrikov discovered a stuffed animal. He gave it to his young ward, the vampire Marceline. She named it Hambo.

Marceline lived on for centuries, long after Simon had descended into madness. Hambo remained Marceline's most precious possession. It was a fragment of innocence from a childhood largely bereft of it.

Alyson Bates made this plush replica of Hambo. It rests next to a replica of Marceline's ax bass.