Henry Phish

This is an interesting article on Techdirt that deals with a disorder where people believe their lives are a movie, like Jim Carey in the Truman Show.

Having had a brother with paranoid schizophrenia, I’m actually well aware that this is a real condition that drastically affects peoples lives, as well as the people around them. People with this disorder really have no say in how they perceive the world, they just do, and it’s a struggle for many of them to deal with many of the things we take for granted. Often, these delusions cause anxiety and depression, which can lead to social disfunction. Honestly, it isn’t a disorder that magically goes away by itself, but people who have this disorder benefit greatly from having good emotional support around them. And while I’m not a big proponent of medication in general, some medications seem to work for people.

Anyway, I won’t repeat the article, just passing it on.

Delusions Of Being Jim Carey In The Truman Show

I read an article on Yahoo the other day about a man in Japan who died of overwork. The official cause of death was ischemic heart disease, which is essentially a heart attack. I’d never actually thought about it before, but it kind of makes sense that one could die from working too hard. In this case, the man had been working 80 hour weeks for over two months while under severe pressure as the head engineer developing the Toyota Camry Hybrid. This isn’t exactly the Dickensonian era, most of us aren’t working in sweat shops, but putting in 70-80 hours a week takes it toll after a while.

Having put in a few 70 hour shifts myself in the last few years, I can tell you it isn’t for the feint of heart. As one friend of mine commented, “You could never get an American worker to put in that kind of overtime. The unions would have a field day.”

The sad thing about all of this is that this event is so common in Japan that it actually has a name, karoshi; literally translated as “death from overwork.”

Japanese Man, 45, Died of Overwork

CBS News Video

This thing is really pretty amazing.

Thank Joe for this post…but I can’t even come close to doing that.

Below is a question/quote I came across this morning. Deep. Apparently the origination of the thought is unknown.

“What if this weren’t a hypothetical question?”

As part of demonstrating a method that saves cooking oil a goldfish was placed in the fryer. I know what you’re thinking “How could they?.” The goldfish was placed in water below the cooking oil.

Because oil floats on water, despite the massive heat (163 degrees Celsius) the goldfish simply stay away from the surface and all is well. They eat the crumbs of croquettes and other fried foods that fall to the bottom, and can live in there for 5-10 years** as they happily clean away, ignorant to the fact that certain death awaits any potential escapees.

CScout Japan

Via Boing Boing

I stumbled on this site when Jeff sent me an article on corporate metrics…or lack thereof…in the world of Viral Marketing. It was an interesting article if you want to check it out.

Of course, of more interest is a response to the article that mentions the website www.willitblend.com. The name pretty much says it all, doesn’t it!

Enjoy!

I can’t wait until my kid tells me you can’t do anything fun with a hamster.

This is probably the most interesting thing that I’ve posted in a long time.  Most of you have heard of Dr Seuss, and are familiar with all his creative creatures such as the Whoos and Beasts and Sneeches…and of course the cat and the hat.  Of course most of you may not have realized that Dr Seuss spent some time as a sculpter of strange and wonderful creations.  As stated on the website:

“Seuss embarked on an ingenious project in the early 1930s as he evolved from two-dimensional artworks to three-dimensional sculptures. What was most unusual for these mixed-media sculptures was the use of real animal parts including beaks, antlers and horns from deceased Forest Park Zoo animals where Seuss’s father was superintendent.”

Check out some pictures of his creations at drseussart.com. 

Rabbit in an interesting video that has to be watched. It has a very unique style.

Rabbit (Click to watch - Big file, prepare to wait)

The story is basically a very simple morality tale about greed - the dangers of greed and exploring nature. It came about when I found some 1950’s stickers in a junk shop about 20 years ago. When I was moving the studio out of Soho about 2 years ago, I fond them again in the bottom of the drawer and thought it would be great to make a film out of them. There were about 200 different stickers.

Article with the creator - Run Wrake: Involuntary Darkness