Archive for 2012

Founder of Who Gives A Crap Toilet Paper is “Sitting Down” for a Cause

by:

Simon Griffiths, an Australian entrepreneur and a co-founder of Who Gives a Crap toilet paper is not getting off the toilet until he raises $50,000 to fill his warehouse with the first supply of his unique toilet paper.

Griffiths along with fellow co-founder Jehan Ratnatunga and freelance product designer Danny Alexander have crafted a toilet paper that is 100 % recycled and contains no harsh chemicals, dyes or scents.

Griffiths said that “I’m sitting down for what I believe in,” and is live streaming his fundraising project for a good cause. The entrepreneurs will donate 50% of its profits to Water Aid that provides access to safe water and sanitation in developing countries.  

The Huffington Post reports that their effort may be quite pivotal since:

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention notes that 6.3 percent of all deaths worldwide could be prevented if access to proper sanitation were available to the 2.6 billion people who now lack it.

Over $26,000 was raised in the first day and the group is just shy of about $2,000 before their $50,000 goal is reached. The Huffington Post also reports that their drastic fundraising project may not be that uncommon:

This isn’t the first time that someone has used the porcelain throne for philanthropic efforts. There’s World Toilet Day and the Big Squat in 2010, along with People’s Own Organic Power project (or the Poop Project) and its “Eat Sh*t” fundraising event to fund a movie on “how our waste can save the world.”

Livestreamed fundraising events also have been done before, at times to a more physically-taxing degree. I AM, a company looking to help brands build social impact ran a campaign called “Don’t Let Will Die,” during which co-founder Will Baxter walked on a treadmill until the company reached its fundraising goal on Kickstarter. If Who Gives A Crap keeps fundraising at this rate, the worst Griffiths may end up with is a sore backside.

Ferrari crash may be world’s most expensive

by:

In what may have been the most expensive auto accident in history, the American driver of a classic Ferrari 250 GTO that he bought seven years ago and is worth $31 million, crashed into another car in France, injuring three people including his wife.

Businessman Christopher Cox crashed during a July 6 parade of Ferraris near the town of Blois during a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the race car.

The blue-and-yellow car can be seen in this video at about the 41-second mark.

England’s Metro website reports Cox was en route to Le Mans in the convoy that included Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason when the accident happened.

Metro reports Cox’s car rolled out of the Ferrari factory in April 1962.

One of only 39 ever built, the 174mph sports car sold for £6,000.

Initially red, it was resprayed blue with a yellow central stripe in 1963. Mr Cox bought it seven years ago.

The Los Angeles Times reports that 23 of the classic Ferraris were touring France, motoring from chateau to chateau for the 50th anniversary of the rarefied race car and finishing at the Le Mans Classic, according to Sports Car Digest.

It was not clear how badly the car was damaged. As word of the accident trickled out, Ferrari enthusiasts were glued to news, hoping the treasured car could be salvaged. The car crashed once before, in 1976, the Sun reported, but was fully restored before Cox bought it in 2005.

Walking ‘billbods’ sell with a little bikini and some paint

by:

Getting the message out there in a big way is something advertisers spend a lot of time and money doing. One woman in New York City thinks she’s found a great solution for them: Half-naked models painted with product pitches. She calls them “walking billbods.”

Margarita Dominguez, who happens to be a classical pianist who’s played Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, according to the New York Post, rents out herself and about 20 other models to sponsors and party planners who can use her body as a billboard.

“I love it. It’s fun,” Dominguez said of her eye-popping body-paint business, which recently had her as the attraction at Knick star Iman Shumpert’s 22nd-birthday party. For that gig, she sported a Shumpert uniform that had been painted on.

… “Walking around for an event for 500 people, with everybody taking pictures? I love it,” she said. “I’m very comfortable with my body.”

First photo ever posted on the Web is turning 20

by:

Screen shot from mysa.com

You remember this picture?

Like most of us, you probably don’t. It was uneventful at the time. But thanks to it, you can post your favorite photos online.

Now we know whom to thank for those pictures people take of themselves through their bathroom mirrors and display for the world to see. (Will that trend ever stop?)

Next week, on July 18, according to Mother Board, the World Wide Web’s first photo will be 20 years old.

The 1992 picture was nothing more than a promotion for a girl group based at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland, home of the Web’s pioneers. But the story behind it is beyond odd. And, apparently, it involves scientists and a cross-dresser.

See more on Mother Board.

Neiman Marcus, Target team up for the holidays

by:

They’re calling it “an epic designer collaboration” for the holidays. And they say their months-long secret plot will pay off because their shopper bases overlap.

Neiman Marcus and Target have joined forces, bringing 24 top U.S. designers on board to offer 50-plus “limited-edition gift items” starting Dec. 1. We’re talking real leather, real silk, real gold.

Prices range from $8 to $500, with most gift ideas under $60, the Dallas retail giant says on its website.

That’s all we can say about the items now, but we’ll keep you updated right here on NMdaily. An ad campaign including TV, print and digital will hit in the fall.

The designers (all members of the Council of Fashion Designers of America) are: Alice + Olivia, Altuzarra, Band of Outsiders, Brian Atwood, Carolina Herrera, Derek Lam, Diane von Furstenberg, Eddie Borgo, Jason Wu, Judith Leiber, Lela Rose, Marchesa, Marc Jacobs, Oscar de la Renta, Philip Crangi, Prabal Gurung, Proenza Schouler, Rag & Bone, Robert Rodriguez, Rodarte, Skaist-Taylor, Thom Browne, Tory Burch, and Tracy Reese.

Stand up for your health at work

by:

How many hours a day do you sit at your job? How much healthier would you be if you could stand, or walk while you work? A new study says you could live longer. The British Medical Journal’s BMJ Open has published research that finds sitting for more than three hours a day can trim your life expectancy by two years, even if you are active and don’t smoke.

Msnbc.com reports the study “adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that sitting itself is deadly.”

The research “elevates sedentary behavior as an important risk factor, similar to smoking and obesity,” said (study researcher Peter)  Katzmarzyk (of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La.)

Other studies have found our culture of sitting may be responsible for about 173,000 cases of cancer each year.

Because U.S. adults spend, on average, between 4.5 and five hours a day sitting down, a significant shift in the population’s behavior would be needed to have an effect on life expectancy, Katzmarzyk said. This might be achieved through changes at the workplace, such as the use of standing desks, and by watching less TV, he said.

Katzmarzyk tells the Wall Street Journal that we should just stand as much as we can for our health.

However, Dr. Katzmarzyk added, standing shouldn’t be an alternative to exercising, but an alternative to sitting. “Several studies show that when you’re sitting, your leg muscles are completely inactive,” he said. “When you’re sitting and completely inactive, this is when you run into trouble managing blood glucose.”

And moving while your standing can only improve the health benefits, right? So there’s a whole movement into treadmill desks, according to NPR.org. They talked to Tom Johnson of a Virginia real estate company, who was considering installing treadmill desks at the office.

So he bought a Steelcase Walkstation, developed by Dr. James Levine, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic and the original advocate of walking while working. Levine’s research has shown that walking on a treadmill desk at just 1 mph will burn an additional 100 to 150 calories an hour.

Now Johnson is on the treadmill most of the day walking at 1.2 mph. “That’s what’s comfortable to me to email or phone; it’s much slower than I would normally walk,” Johnson says.

Disney spreads cheer in North Korea?

by:

North Korea’s new young leader, Kim Jon-un, may be hoping to spread a little magic over his nation of 24 million people with help from Mickey Mouse.

State-run television on Monday reportedly showed footage of the costumed characters dancing in front of Kim amid an audience of clapping generals, according to the New York Times. The newspaper reports:

The footage also showed Mr. Kim in a black Mao suit watching as Mickey Mouse conducted a group of young women playing violins in skimpy black dresses. At times, scenes from the animated Disney movies Dumbo and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were projected on a multipanel screen behind the entertainers; an article in the state-run press said unnamed foreign songs were on the bill.

The appearance of the characters from the United States, North Korea’s enemy, was remarkable fare on tightly controlled North Korean television, which usually shows more somber and overtly political programs. A Disney spokeswoman, Zenia Mucha, had no comment Monday beyond a statement: “This was not licensed or authorized by the Walt Disney Co.”

Whether the show helped brighten the mood in a communist country known for its abysmal human rights record and periodic famines and chronic malnutrition wasn’t clear.

The Kim family, however, does seem to have a special affinity for Disney, according to the New York Times.

In 2001, the current leader’s older brother, Kim Jong-nam, was detained by the Japanese authorities while trying to enter Japan on a Dominican Republic passport to visit Tokyo Disneyland, the paper reported.

Testicle-eating cousin to the piranha found in Illinois lake

by:

The pacu fish, originally from the Amazon Basin, has recently been caught by a fisherman in Lake Lou Yaegar in Illnois, according to huffingtonpost.com

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources identified the fish as a pacu, a cousin to the piranha. Some reports also note that another pacu was seen weeks later. Biologists says the pacus might be aquarium pets and anyone found dumping the fish in the lake can be criminally charged.

The pacu can weigh up to 55 pounds and eats nuts, aquatic vegetation and snails, but is known as the “ball cutter” in Papua New Guinea said British Fisherman, Jeremy Wade. In the 1990′s, the pacu was introduced into Papua New Guinea’s rivers as a  food source, for locals, after overfishing. From the Huffington Post:
 

In 2011, Wade said locals informed him that two fisherman had died from blood loss after something in the water had bitten off their testicles, according to the Metro.

“The locals told me that this thing was like a human in the water, biting at the testicles of fishermen,” Wade said.

Wade determined that the perpetrator was the pacu, which is known for having human-like teeth. The angler did note that such attacks are uncommon, the Daily Mail reports.