This is a real house in Portugal called Casa do Penedo, which means "house of stone." Built in 1974, the current resident had to reinforce the house with security doors and window bars because of the many visitors and occasional vandals. Casa do Penedo is just one of a list of Ten Strange Places Where People Live, some of which may induce vertigo. Link -via J-Walk Blog
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This is a real house in Portugal called Casa do Penedo, which means "house of stone." Built in 1974, the current resident had to reinforce the house with security doors and window bars because of the many visitors and occasional vandals. Casa do Penedo is just one of a list of Ten Strange Places Where People Live, some of which may induce vertigo. Link -via J-Walk Blog
It kind of gets you right here to see the manliest men in history putting a pen to paper to express their soft side. We saw that in Teddy Roosevelt's diary entry not long ago. On a happier subject, here's a note that Samuel Clemens (also known as Mark Twain) wrote to his wife Olivia in 1888.
See the full size version at Letters of Note. Link
(Image credit: The Mark Twain House & Museum)
Hartford, Nov. 27/88
Livy Darling, I am grateful — gratefuler than ever before — that you were born, & that your love is mine & our two lives woven & welded together!
SLC.
See the full size version at Letters of Note. Link
(Image credit: The Mark Twain House & Museum)
You've seen the car stickers that represent a family. Why settle for stick figures when you can use Daleks? Etsy seller SCDJ1125 sells them in three sizes, with an optional dog sticker available. Be sure to check out the "My other car is a TARDIS" sticker, too! Link -via @johncfarrier
The only limit to what a skilled craftster can create with needle felting is the imagination. There are artists who will surprise you with their subjects, like this heart-ripping declaration of love from artist Hine Mizushima. Check out a variety of weird sculptures at Oddee. Link
The following is an article from Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader.
A dark tale from our "Dustbin of Gruesome History" files.
THE DISCOVERY
One the night of April 28, 1908, Joe Maxson, a hired hand on a farm outside of La Porte, Indiana, awoke in his upstairs bedroom to the smell of smoke. The house was on fire. He called out to the farm's owner, Belle Gunness, and her three children. Getting no answer, he jumped from a second-story window, narrowly escaping the flames, and ran for help. But it was too late; the house was destroyed. A search through the wreckage resulted in a grisly discovery: four dead bodies in the basement. Three were Gunness's children, aged 5, 9, and 11. The fourth was a woman, assumed to be Gunness herself, but identification was difficult- the body's head was missing. An investigation ensued, and Ray Lamphere, a recently fired employee, was arrested for arson and murder. Before Lamphere's trial was over, he would be little more than a sidebar in what is still one of the most horrible crime stories in American history ...and an unsolved mystery.
BACKGROUND
Belle Gunness was born Brynhild Paulsdatter Storseth in Selbu, Norway in 1859. At the age of 22 she emigrated to America and moved in with her older sister in Chicago, where she changed her name to "Belle." In 1884 the 25-year-old married another Norwegian immigrant, Mads Sorenson, and the couple opened a candy shop. A year later the store burned down, the first of what would be several suspicious fires in Belle's life. The couple collected an insurance payout and used the money to buy a house in the Chicago suburbs. Fifteen years later, in 1898, that house burned down, and another insurance payout allowed the couple to buy another house. On July 30, 1900, yet another insurance policy was brought into play, but this time it was life insurance: Mads Sorenson had died. A doctor's autopsy said he was murdered, probably by strychnine poisoning, so an inquest was ordered. The coroner's investigation eventually deemed the death to be "of natural causes," and Belle collected $8,000, becoming, for 1900, a wealthy woman. (The average yearly income in 1900 was less than $500.) She used part of the money to buy a farm in La Porte. But there was a lot more death -and insurance money- to come.
MORE SUSPICIONS
In April 1902, Belle married a local butcher named Peter Gunness and became Belle Gunness. One week later, Peter Gunness's infant daughter died while left alone with Belle... and yet another insurance policy was collected on. Just eight months after that, Peter Gunness was dead: He was found in his shed with his skull crushed. Belle, who was 5'8", weighed well over 200 pounds, and was known to be very strong, told police that a meat grinder had fallen from a high shelf and landed on her husband's head. The coroner said otherwise, ruling the cause of death to be murder. On top of that, a witness claimed to have overheard Belle's 14-year-old daughter, Jennie, saying to a classmate, "My mama killed my papa. She hit him with a meat cleaver and he died."
Belle and Jennie were brought before a coroner's jury and questioned. Jennie denied making the statement; Belle denied killing her husband. The jury found Belle innocent -and she collected another $3,000 in life insurance money. And she was just getting started.
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A dark tale from our "Dustbin of Gruesome History" files.
THE DISCOVERY
One the night of April 28, 1908, Joe Maxson, a hired hand on a farm outside of La Porte, Indiana, awoke in his upstairs bedroom to the smell of smoke. The house was on fire. He called out to the farm's owner, Belle Gunness, and her three children. Getting no answer, he jumped from a second-story window, narrowly escaping the flames, and ran for help. But it was too late; the house was destroyed. A search through the wreckage resulted in a grisly discovery: four dead bodies in the basement. Three were Gunness's children, aged 5, 9, and 11. The fourth was a woman, assumed to be Gunness herself, but identification was difficult- the body's head was missing. An investigation ensued, and Ray Lamphere, a recently fired employee, was arrested for arson and murder. Before Lamphere's trial was over, he would be little more than a sidebar in what is still one of the most horrible crime stories in American history ...and an unsolved mystery.
BACKGROUND
Belle Gunness was born Brynhild Paulsdatter Storseth in Selbu, Norway in 1859. At the age of 22 she emigrated to America and moved in with her older sister in Chicago, where she changed her name to "Belle." In 1884 the 25-year-old married another Norwegian immigrant, Mads Sorenson, and the couple opened a candy shop. A year later the store burned down, the first of what would be several suspicious fires in Belle's life. The couple collected an insurance payout and used the money to buy a house in the Chicago suburbs. Fifteen years later, in 1898, that house burned down, and another insurance payout allowed the couple to buy another house. On July 30, 1900, yet another insurance policy was brought into play, but this time it was life insurance: Mads Sorenson had died. A doctor's autopsy said he was murdered, probably by strychnine poisoning, so an inquest was ordered. The coroner's investigation eventually deemed the death to be "of natural causes," and Belle collected $8,000, becoming, for 1900, a wealthy woman. (The average yearly income in 1900 was less than $500.) She used part of the money to buy a farm in La Porte. But there was a lot more death -and insurance money- to come.
MORE SUSPICIONS
In April 1902, Belle married a local butcher named Peter Gunness and became Belle Gunness. One week later, Peter Gunness's infant daughter died while left alone with Belle... and yet another insurance policy was collected on. Just eight months after that, Peter Gunness was dead: He was found in his shed with his skull crushed. Belle, who was 5'8", weighed well over 200 pounds, and was known to be very strong, told police that a meat grinder had fallen from a high shelf and landed on her husband's head. The coroner said otherwise, ruling the cause of death to be murder. On top of that, a witness claimed to have overheard Belle's 14-year-old daughter, Jennie, saying to a classmate, "My mama killed my papa. She hit him with a meat cleaver and he died."
Belle and Jennie were brought before a coroner's jury and questioned. Jennie denied making the statement; Belle denied killing her husband. The jury found Belle innocent -and she collected another $3,000 in life insurance money. And she was just getting started.
Simon works, and his cat wants to help. Anyone with both a cat and a computer can relate. Another animation from Simon Tofield. -via Laughing Squid
Charlotte Baker had a flat tire and pulled off to the side of the road between Byfield and Boddington in England. While the 28-year-old Baker, who is nine months pregnant, called her boyfriend for help, two men stopped and began to change the tire on her Porsche 911
Link -via Arbroath
But to Miss Baker’s disbelief, once he had finished he pushed past her, jumped into the front seat and drove off behind his friend in the white van.
She was left alone and distressed at the side of the road until an elderly man stopped and offered her a lift.
Miss Baker said: “The shock is starting to fade but now I am just reeling. It’s absolutely disgusting, these men have no morals.
Link -via Arbroath
(YouTube link)
This is a Google Doodle tribute to Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara) for what would have been his 65th birthday on Monday. If the doodle isn't showing up on the Google search page in your region yet, you can see it here. Clicking on the doodle will bring up this video. -via reddit
You may be familiar with Claus von Stauffenberg, who conspired to kill Hitler with a bomb and whose plot was the basis for the Tom Cruise film Valkyrie. But do you know about the many other attempts on Hitler's life? One involved Georg Elser, who worked alone for a year on a plan to destroy the Fuhrer, with a bomb planted in a beer hall.
When the bomb finally went off, it killed eight people and injured 64 others -but Hitler was not one of them . Read the whole story at Past Imperfect. Link
While Elser was in the bierkeller he noted the stone pillar just behind the speaker’s dais; it supported a substantial balcony along one wall. His rough calculations suggested that a large bomb placed within the pillar would bring down the balcony and bury both the Führer and a number of his chief supporters. The question was how to conceal a device sufficiently powerful to do the job within a piece of solid stonework.
Here again Elser proved to have precisely the qualities needed for the job. Knowing that he had a year to prepare, he went to work methodically, obtaining a low-paying job in an arms factory and taking whatever opportunities presented themselves to smuggle 110 pounds of high explosives out of the plant. A temporary job in a quarry supplied him with dynamite and a quantity of high-capacity detonators. In the evenings, he returned to his apartment and worked on designs for a sophisticated time bomb.
When the bomb finally went off, it killed eight people and injured 64 others -but Hitler was not one of them . Read the whole story at Past Imperfect. Link
If you are a supervisor in your workplace and you die at work, there is a 10% chance that it was murder. If you're not in management, the chances of your case being a murder drops to 7%. Gizmodo crunched the statistics on the 4,547 American workplace deaths in 2010 and found some other interesting tidbits:
Happy Labor Day! Link -via the Presurfer
Overall, "Transportation and material moving occupations"—people who work operating vehicles—dominated the death list, with 1,115 killed on the job. Only seven percent of them were murdered.
The 45-54 year-old bracket made up the plurality of deaths, with a full quarter. 16% of them plummeted to their demises.
The deadliest state to work in? Texas, with 456 fatalities. The safest? New Hampshire, with only 5. West Virginia won the explosion death contest, with 34—likely from all that coal mining, which is extremely dangerous and explosion-prone.
Happy Labor Day! Link -via the Presurfer
Labor Day weekend, the traditional time to say goodbye to summer. The holiday is a day of tribute to the working people who built our country and who continue to make things run. Let's also remember so many who want to work, who need jobs when the jobs just aren't there right now. If you work and have Labor Day off, you may need some reading material to relax with between activities, and we have them here at Neatorama!
Stacy Conradt brought us the stories of Six Celebrities and their Alter Egos.
Jill Harness rounded up a bunch of Smurfingly Smurftastic Facts About The Smurfs.
Eddie Deezen contributed some timely trivia in 11 Facts You May Not Know About Jerry Lewis.
Now Hear This: Radio War Propagandists was our post this week from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
From the Annals of Improbable Research, we saw Mankiw’s Ten Principles of Economics, Translated.
The Political Hot Potato was the latest from mental_floss magazine.
Every once in a great while, our readers contribute something so neat in the comments that we have to post it to make sure everyone sees it. That happened this week when Stubb filled us in on Pattern Baldness in Russian Leadership.
The Star Wars Lightsaber Mini Hunt popped up suddenly, to give some Neatoramanaut a Darth Vader Force FX Lightsaber from Habro! That contest is still open, so check it out.
In the What Is It? game this week, the object pictured is an ice chipper. Craig Clayton was the first of many with the correct answer, so he wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop. The funniest answer came from Maxx McIlhargey, who said it was a toothpick for crocodiles, used by wildlife conservationists to get the drug runner bones from between the crocodile’s teeth from a distance. He did not select a shirt.
It's a long holiday weekend, so after you catch up on these posts, you may want to browse through The Best of Neatorama, where we have feature article going back six years! Happy Labor Day, everyone!
Stacy Conradt brought us the stories of Six Celebrities and their Alter Egos.
Jill Harness rounded up a bunch of Smurfingly Smurftastic Facts About The Smurfs.
Eddie Deezen contributed some timely trivia in 11 Facts You May Not Know About Jerry Lewis.
Now Hear This: Radio War Propagandists was our post this week from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
From the Annals of Improbable Research, we saw Mankiw’s Ten Principles of Economics, Translated.
The Political Hot Potato was the latest from mental_floss magazine.
Every once in a great while, our readers contribute something so neat in the comments that we have to post it to make sure everyone sees it. That happened this week when Stubb filled us in on Pattern Baldness in Russian Leadership.
The Star Wars Lightsaber Mini Hunt popped up suddenly, to give some Neatoramanaut a Darth Vader Force FX Lightsaber from Habro! That contest is still open, so check it out.
In the What Is It? game this week, the object pictured is an ice chipper. Craig Clayton was the first of many with the correct answer, so he wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop. The funniest answer came from Maxx McIlhargey, who said it was a toothpick for crocodiles, used by wildlife conservationists to get the drug runner bones from between the crocodile’s teeth from a distance. He did not select a shirt.
It's a long holiday weekend, so after you catch up on these posts, you may want to browse through The Best of Neatorama, where we have feature article going back six years! Happy Labor Day, everyone!
It happens every year -college textbook prices are so high that freshmen go into shock at the thought of paying $100 or more for a book. There are several reasons given for the high price of textbooks: some that the vendors will disclose and others they don't. First off, texts are expensive to produce, compared to everyday novels.
Read the real story behind sky-high textbook prices at mental_floss. Link
There’s certainly some validity to this explanation. Yes, those charts and diagrams are expensive to produce, and the relatively small print runs of textbooks keep publishers from enjoying the kind of economies of scale they get on a bestselling popular novel. Any economist who has a pulse (and probably some who don’t) could poke holes in this argument pretty quickly, though.
In the simplest economic terms, the high price of textbooks is symptomatic of misaligned incentives, not exorbitant production costs. Students hold the reasonable stance that they’d like to spend as little money as possible on their books. Students don’t really have the latitude to pick which texts they need, though.
Read the real story behind sky-high textbook prices at mental_floss. Link
Look at this tie -isn't it awesome? It's like the ties worn in the Kraftwerk video for the song "The Robots." Nine LEDs flash in descending order, guaranteeing you'll be noticed. You can make your own, too, and be the robot of the party, with instructions from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Link
Chris Jeon is a 21-year-old college student from Los Angeles. On a whim, he decided to go on vacation by himself -to Libya.
Jeon plans to be back in L.A. before school starts later this month. Link -via The Daily What
(Image credit: Kristen Chick)
“I just go and see what happens,” he said. “At spring break I told my friends a 'sick' vacation would be to come here and fight with the rebels.”
He spent $800 on a one-way ticket from L.A. to Cairo, then traveled by land across the border into Libya, where he has now been for nearly two weeks. His parents do not know he is here. He speaks no Arabic, and has been staying with fighters and families in the area.
“I haven’t spent a dollar in weeks,” he says, because the people of Libya have extended such hospitality.
Jeon plans to be back in L.A. before school starts later this month. Link -via The Daily What
(Image credit: Kristen Chick)
On a hill called Teufelsberg (Devil's Mountain) near Berlin, an abandoned facility complete with "radar domes" stands. It was once used as a listening station for the US to intercept Soviet communications, and then abandoned when West and East Berlin were reunited. It was built over top the remains of a Nazi war college. Exploring this station is difficult, as it is deteriorating. One of the dangers is an open 10-story elevator shaft! See a set of pictures at Environmental Graffiti. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Nate Bolt)
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