Children think that the president of the United States is a rich man by definition because he has an extremely prestigious and important job. Of course, "rich" is a relative term. The Atlantic looks at the wealth of all 43 men who have held the office, adjusted to the current value of the dollar.
We analyzed presidential finances based on historical sources. Most media evaluations of the net worth of presidents have come up with a very wide range, a spread in which the highest figure was often several times the lowest estimate. Most sources provided no hard figures at all. Most of these efforts have focused largely on the analysis of recent chief executives. That is because it is much easier to calculate figures in a world where assets and incomes are a matter of public record.
One of the most important conclusions of this analysis is that the presidency has little to do with wealth. Several brought huge net worths to the job. Many lost most of their fortunes after leaving office. Some never had any money at all.
Considering the small population of the continent, Antarctica has a lot of abandoned settlements. In such extremely low temperatures, it is much easier to leave structures and possessions behind than to take them with you when you leave. Harsh conditions also preserve what is left, since bacteria and mold that break down materials elsewhere on earth can't survive in Antarctica. Camps and settlements abandoned 100 years ago still sit, appearing just as they did when they were in use. The hut shown was left by Sir Ernest Shackleton in 1909. See and read about ten of these places at WebUrbanist. Link
What would happen if a tropical storm hit the oil floating in the Gulf? It depends on the storm, and exactly where it meets the oil.
Much depends on the angle at which the storm crosses the slick. In the Northern Hemisphere, hurricanes rotate counterclockwise, with the largest storm surge occurring where the winds blow in the direction the storm as a whole is traveling—that's in front of the eye and off to the right. (Meteorologists worry over a hurricane's dangerous "right-front quadrant.") So if a powerful storm approached the slick from the southwest, say, its most potent winds would push the oil forward, instead of sweeping it off to the side and out of the storm's path. If the storm then plowed into the Gulf Coast, you'd expect an oily landfall.
You've heard of Bigfoot, Nessie, and the Abominable Snowman. Here are a few of their more obscure (but just as fascinating) cousins. Monster: Sciopod Where it lived: Ethiopia Legend: Latin for "shade foot", these relatively peaceful creatures were first recorded in around A.D. 77 by the Roman historian Pliny the Elder. They were said to live in the wilds of what is now Ethiopia and were described as small, pale, humanlike creatures-but with only one leg and a giant foot. They hopped around on that giant foot, but they also used it as sun shade: Sciopods supposedly spent several hours a day lying on their backs with their giant feet in the air to block the harsh North African sun. Sciopods were extremely powerful, too. They could kill a large game animal (or a human) with a single jumping kick. But never fear-the strange creatures didn't eat meat. Or plants. Or anything. They existed solely on the aroma of living fruit, with they always carried with them. Sciopods are mentioned in numerous writings over several centuries, ending sometime in the Middle Ages.
Monster: Gowrow Where it lived: Arkansas Legend: This monster was first heard of in the 1880s, when Arkansas farmers reported being terrorized by a huge lizard. In 1897 Fred Allsopp, a reporter for the Arkansas Gazette, wrote about an encounter with the beast. The monster, which Allsopp named a "gowrow" after the sound it made, had been eating livestock in the Ozark Mountains in the northwest of the state. A local business man named William Miller formed a posse to hunt and kill it. They found its lair, which was littered with animal (and human) bones, and waited for it. It surprised them by emerging from a nearby lake and attacking them-but they were able to kill it with several gunshots. Miller described the gowrow as being 20 feet long, with huge tusks, webbed and clawed feet, a row of horns along its spine, and a knifelike end to a long tail. He said he sent the body to the Smithsonian Institute-but it mysteriously never made it. Allsopp finished the article by saying he believed it was a "great fake", but sightings of a similar lizardlike creature were reported in the Ozarks for many years.
Monster: Encantado Where it lives: The Amazon River Legend:Encantado means "enchanted one" in Portuguese and refers to a special kind of boto, or long-beaked river dolphin native to the Amazon-that can take human form. Encantados are curious about humans and are especially attracted to big, noisy festivals, which they often attend as musicians, staying in human form for years. How can you recognize one? Look under its hat: They always have bald spots that are actually disguised blowholes. Encantados are usually friendly, but they occasionally hypnotize and kidnap young women and take them back to the Encante, their underground city. Sometimes the women escape and return...pregnant with an Encantado baby. Monster: Kappa Where it lives: Japan Legend: Kappas are said to inhabit lakes and rivers throughout the Japanese islands. They look like frogs, but with tortoiselike shells on their backs. They can leave the water-carrying their shells with them-because they have shallow depressions in their heads in which they keep a bit of water that not only allows them to walk around on land but also makes them incredibly strong. If you encounter one, bow to it. They're very polite, so they'll have to bow back to you...and the water will spill out of their head-bowls, weakening them. Their favorite food: the blood of small children. Their second-favorite: cucumbers. That's why you can still see people in Japan throwing fresh cucumbers into lakes and rivers-with the names of their children carved into them. This, the legend says, will protect their little ones from the kappa's clutches.
Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.
You haven't lived until you've heard "Sweet Child o' Mine" as a swing tune!
The Swinger is a bit of python code that takes any song and makes it swing. It does this be taking each beat and time-stretching the first half of each beat while time-shrinking the second half. It has quite a magical effect.
Hear several examples at Music Machinery. Link -via Metafilter
In honor of Pac-Man's 30th birthday, SF Weekly has collected ten different kinds of Pac-Man cakes! From the simple "someone took a piece" cake to the elaborate setup you see in this cake Jenny made for Omar Kooheji's birthday, you'll see something that will whet your appetite. Link -via Digg
Last summer David Byrne of The Talking Heads converted an entire building, the Camden Roundhouse in London, into a musical instrument! He connected every pipe, pillar, and beam to a keyboard, from which you can make them vibrate and produce their individual sounds. This is one only of several large and different musical instruments made out of structures such as silos, a tower, a synagogue, and more at Dark Roasted Blend. Link
In the Spotlight this week, we were delighted to feature a book by National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore, called RARE: Portraits of America's Endangered Species. The photographs are gorgeous, the stories of they were taken are surprising, and the animals are sadly, becoming more rare.
To celebrate his birthday, Jill Harness wrote The Divine Dali Drama, a peek into the surreal life of Salvador Dali. He would have been 106 this month.
At NeatoBambino, we featured an excerpt from the book Love, Mom by Cynthia Baseman, "a rare glimpse into the normally private world of a grieving mother" who has experienced the heartbreak of stillbirth. In a more upbeat post, we got a look at the delicious way the Neatokids are learning about the alphabet.
Attention science fiction fans! At NeatoGeek, you're invited to participate in the Question of the Day. It's a forum to share your opinions and read what others think, and will help us know what you are interested in seeing at NeatoGeek.
We had an exclusive excerpt from the bookGeekspeak: A Guide to Answering the Unanswerable, Making Sense of the Insensible, and Solving the Unsolvable by Dr. Graham Tattersall. In it, we learned how to mathematically estimate how many flies it would take to pull a car. Talk about alternative energy!
From Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, we read about The Origin of Levi's, how America's favorite pants were developed and promoted.
The Quiz Play Day contest ran all week long. We were in the lead for a while, but then Boing Boing pulled out the big guns. Still, we rallied and came close! Thanks to everyone who played, donated, and voted for your favorite blog! The promotion raised almost $2K $2,443 for various charities. We'll announce the prize winners as soon as we have them.
The What Is It? game came around on Thursday. Please be aware that often Alex will award prizes for both the correct answer and the funniest wrong answer (like this week), so it could pay off to play even if you have no idea what it is.
Geeks Are Sexy unveiled a contest in which you can win a prize from the NeatoShop, and all you have to do is leave a comment!
We are heading into the final full week of the competition at the Upcoming Queue. It's not too late to get involved by creating your own Neatorama posts. Even if you aren't competing, we invite you to help us out by looking through the submissions, checking out the links, and voting for those posts you think are Neatorama-worthy.
Schools are finishing up for the year all over the country. A big hearty congratulations to graduates who are picking up diplomas from high schools and colleges from all of us at Neatorama!
It's a day of birthdays and anniversaries at NeatoGeek. Two cultural touchstones are turning 30, and a guy who turned 26 got a cake. You won't believe how awesome those stories are until you read them all at NeatoGeek. Link
Of course you enjoy board games, but there are so many you might have trouble identifying the game from just a card or a piece. Or maybe you know them so well you can ace today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. I scored only 57%, because it's been so long since I played some of these that the actual hardware has been updated. Link
There have been many instances of online communities banding together to help someone in the real world. The latest incident involves Metafilter members who kept two Russian girls from becoming sex slaves when they arrived in the US yesterday. They were promised jobs from a questionable source who directed them to a strip club for an interview. Mefi members went into overdrive to investigate, stop the meeting, and get the girls official assistance despite the insinuation of threats from their contacts. The thread at Ask Metafilter unfolds like a movie script.
Your friend has become a victim of human trafficking. Her 'hosts' know that her fear of immigration authorities may prevent her from seeking help. That fear makes it possible for them to continue selling women into sexual slavery. (And yes, that's exactly what it is. Your friend's passport will be taken, she will be raped, she won't be paid and she may never have the opportunity to contact the outside world again). But i promise you, if you contact the police, they will be far less concerned about the immigration status of two Russian women than they will be about potentially bringing down a human trafficking ring. Some jurisdictions even have specific amnesties which protect the victims of human trafficking in return for information about their traffickers. If your friend won't contact the police, you should call them yourself. posted by embrangled at 6:02 PM on May 19
Flickr user Ambrosia Voyeur found a fascinating map published in 1927 that Hollywood studios used to find relatively nearby locations to film far-away places. As you can see, certain spots in California were considered good for filming places like Siberia, Sherwood Forest, the Sahara Desert, and other movie settings. The source is The American Film Industry by Tino Balio. According to the book, the variety of available geography in southern California is one of the reasons Hollywood became the center of the film industry. Link to image. Link to book. -via Buzzfeed
Are figs really full of baby wasps? It sounds like an urban legend, so the answer may surprise you. Wasps burrow into figs to lay their eggs.
While these images may not be all that appetizing, there's no reason to swear off figs quite yet. Those little insects are fig wasps, and they play an essential role in the fig's life cycle as the plant's only pollinator. That means that for pollen from one fig plant to reach another plant, fig wasps must do all the leg work. In return, the plant provides fig wasps with their only sources of food and shelter.
This arrangement is called mutualism. Both plant and wasp depend on the arrangement to survive, and without one, you wouldn't have the other.
But what happens when it's time to harvest the figs? Are the wasps still inside? Do the food companies scrape them out before they turn figs into jam? Or were the 12-year-olds right all along -- are we really eating a mouthful of sweet baby wasp paste?
How Stuff Works lays out the entire story. Link -via Holy Kaw!
